Island Song
Gulls shriek above polished stones.
This is the island of the dead.
Trees bend in the wind.
We have rowed here from a hidden cove.
Our hands burn.
We have eaten the subtle plants,
and our vision blurs. We hear drums.
Dancers move along the shore.
Their legs are on fire. They leap and twirl.
Yesterday we built an altar, swam for hours
in the cold pool. We could see the underwater lights.
Your mother brought us deviled eggs on paper plates.
My mother brought oranges, so sweet and cold.
We talked on the phone for hours to some old friends.
It was late when we hung up. The moon came out.
It was hard to see, but the dead lined up along the wide
garage.
In between the motorcycle and the cars, they opened their
throats and sang.
A Cup of Wine
Because it was October in his
life,
he refilled his cup with wine
Sam Hamill
It burned with pleasant
bitterness.
Sky held clouds
like islands
scattered in a calm sea.
He thought of ships
and rain
and a leather bag
filled with storm
and wind,
a passage through darkness,
where dead kings
drank black ram’s blood,
remembering nothing
but grievance and wounds.
He ate a handful of nuts,
washed his empty cup
in the stream.
The final miles
dragged at his thin legs.
In the cabin, a fire blazed.
Friends and food
and a cup of wine.
Together they laughed
and drank as the hours dwindled.
Dawn renewed herself in the eastern sky.
The Opening
And the emptiness turns its face to
us
and whispers
“I am not empty, I am open.”
Tomas Transtromer
My father told me a story
about a man who walked
on the bridge of a single hair
above a gorge so deep
he could only see the rocks below
when something moved
across the surface.
His brother took the bridge
of stone, but it crumbled
as he reached halfway.
The hero crossed,
but gave himself up for dead.
When he arrived at the village
of the blessed, he could
no longer look down.
He never saw his feet again.
When it came time to eat,
he was always dizzy and cold.
Sometimes it takes a lot to survive.
Then you wonder, as days pile up,
where the opening might be,
the doorway no one mentions,
a ladder to the attic where
an old chest lies, forgotten in the dust.
Steve Klepetar lives in the Shire (Berkshire County, in Massachusetts, that is). His work has appeared widely and has received several nominations for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. He is the author of fourteen poetry collections, including Family Reunion and The Li Bo Poems.
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