Our backs hold stories
Not even the spine
On a book can handle

Green to the eye
begets the visage: life-
Startlingly simple,
a color tells it all.

So ‘tis with the note
and the morning earth is smelly-
I ask,
by what happy accident
is everything made plain?

Like a dog bearing its belly
or a moth sleeping in daylight-
the unapparent thing of life
these words just cannot say.

Don't fear the pain,

use it,

keep it there,

beside you,

and maybe,

just maybe,

it will give you the words to say in a poem,

or the notes to play in a song,

for sometimes

it is flying with what hurts,

that gives us the colors to paint with.
                                                                                        Jon York    2018

Sky looks deserted,
The army of clouds retreated;
Calamitous moves!