And Resurrection
Again a rattling alarm
in all the pits of the body
the limbs seize up
The house dodders over
the brink of silence wings sagging
on a lawn of sand
like an angel when it’s lost
the strength to hover
Hoarse from another night wasted
shouting warnings at sleep
dawn’s surf crawls back under the porch
after a night ringing the buoys like church deadbells
it stretches out by the pilings
and digs
The sun scrawls up
the milky slate of the sky
chalk in a palsied hand
sentenced to write
until it gets it
right
and ever shall be world
without end amen
amen
Great sheets of dew thrown up to dry stiff
will they ever come clean
of their bridal stain
while the needles of jets
mend north to south
where those blue patches wear and tear
where we shiver awake
cold in a draft
Midsummer Eve
As my left hand eases onto her sleeping hip
I know the way of a snake on a rock
At the magic syllables of mourning dove and whippoorwill
the snake straightens into a staff and strikes the rock
An oasis wells up through the black sand of the night
and we drink where the dove has found her branch
This Poem
This poem calls attention to itself
as goldenrod pollen blown in overnight onto your pillow
calls attention to itself
This poem is slight
as lichen that cracks a stone bench and holds the cracks together
is slight
This poem is weak
as pine logged hauled sawn pulped beat into eraseable paper
is weak
This poem is dispensible
as a plainly dressed child laughing on a crowded playground
is dispensible
This poem is blind
as tears climbing into your eyes when rain ages to snow and snow to ice
are blind
This poem is deaf
as a diamond rough in the shovel fine in the watch of a dying man
is deaf
This poem is dead
as the sand wherein ghost crabs and rising sun clams have buried themselves
is dead
This poem is reborn
as I all my nerves restrung by your hands strummed in the new sun
am reborn