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the snake sheds its skin to make more snake
the moon drops her black skirts to round herself the trees grow wider rippled out in slow rings from a single seed the owl measures the darkness with her spherical voice the fox cuts a red ribbon across your headlights. from where do you enter this world? asks the bear over the dark afterthought of his shoulder. do you think it matters how you sit on this seat of earth, how you stand on the rocks of your feet? be something sudden says the frog. plunge in. Durga, you have all the answers. you have placed them around me, in all directions in all forms. I am waiting for the last leaf
to fall a turn of the twig the sound of the frost cracking its white knuckles. the leaf will lie on its back a jot of blood on a drab field and the sun taking notice will abruptly set. I wait for this every year the way an astronomer waits for a star to die and reflexively holds out his hands as if to catch a falling child. who hasn't done the same when love fails? by November I will be three quarters full of wing-broke birds and making room for more. Durga, you did not tell me about this sort of waiting. you did not warn me of all the things that will fall through my hands. if I should die or pretend to die
face down turned away from the holy orange sun please--in the heaviest sense of that word please the way a starving child says please-- please come drape your entire worldly weight on me and press my heart that bitter acorn into the center of the earth below the frost. when I let go I want everything taken from me even that last thimble of air threatening to lift me like a tired kite. I want to go down heavy as a blues hymn be down stay down become down not the metaphor but the thing itself. down! only your special gravity is enough you who fit me like a spoon you who floated on the simple raft of my body and called it your royal boat. |
Poetry LogPoems are posted here when I'm ready to share them. I often don't title my poems. The date you see above the poem may be the date it was posted here and not necessarily the date it was created. To see more, click on the Archives below. Archives
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Unless otherwise noted, all content ©Paul-William Gagnon, Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-NoDerivs license.
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