Again and Again
Courageous boys leap into the quarry pond.
Their anguished sisters sing as the sun goes down.
High above, a barn owl swoops toward the olive trees.
Brave girls swim for hours around the lake.
Their worried brothers light fires and wait.
Whatever we’ve forged from iron
or sculpted from clay,
whatever we’ve struggled to build,
whatever our shoulders carried at night,
all that has vanished in the red light of flame.
Nothing gleams from a hole in the lake.
All our works, all our plans march out in lines.
Everyone we loved comes back to ask
how this could be. All we can do is wave them away.
Even when we are not alone, we hunger and wait
for the animal parade.
From here, everything looks endless.
Water spills down the rocks, and it all happens again and again.
A Faraway Town
My mother drove to a faraway town.
All night the mountain loomed above her as she drove.
There was smoke and a trail in the woods.
She sat by a lake and watched boats as they sailed far from shore.
She shaded her eyes from the sun.
At noon she walked up to the hotel and ate lunch
with a woman from Montreal.
That night, the woman and her husband
drove my mother to a concert.
They ate a picnic, and at intermission,
my mother bought ice cream for everyone.
Strangely there were birds all over the lawn.
Crows circled overhead, woodpeckers thrummed at the trees.
The conductor swatted the air with his baton.
The musicians cursed and stopped playing.
The air was filled with gulls, even so far from the sea.
The woman from Montreal was crying.
She had ice cream stains on her silk blouse.
Her husband went to get the car. Feathers were everywhere.
My mother began to sing. Her voice was very deep, very loud.
Birds began to fall from the sky,
Soon there were bodies on the grass, sparrows in the women’s hair,
geese flailing and falling as notes rose in their deadly flight.
People cheered. My mother took a bow.
She told this story frequently and all her friends believed it was true.
Over the years they had heard her sing away many unpleasant things.
The Poem That Whispered
It whispered secrets to stars,
which long ago spilled across the winter sky.
The poem had many things to say.
It loved the cold, how the air felt thick as glass,
how snow crunched beneath her feet.
She was a northern poem, a poem of wind
and pines. She whispered like empty echoes
in an alleyway. She whispered like smoke,
like rusty pipes, like leaves. Once I found her
in the saloon, where locals came
to drink small glasses of watery beer.
She was sitting alone, a fur hat on the table
by her side. She looked past me.
Snow drifted down. It was deep, seven inches
with more on the way.
She whispered for me to follow.
We drove through thickening night to where a pair of deer
stood silently in a clearing not far from the road.
They watched, unafraid as our breath dissolved into mist.
I love Þhe Poem That Whispered! Such beautiful images.
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