...and there’s no one there to hear it,
does it make a sound?
_______
My poetry performed—
before a crowd of johnny-jump-ups
Their faces toward me in unison—
they listen
Intense, motionless energy
Velvet applause of purple and
Yellow yelling!
Encore
of performing in the perfume
with a troop of lilacs
They will remember me
While I— await their return to May
through billowing miles
of drowsing sachet
breathing euphorias
between the lingerie of clouds
What happens after ecstasy?
Grieving in life’s presence?
Loss of mind to self-possession?
____
...and when my sense of smell gives out
I will hold on for a while
to the walker of hearing
trying not to stumble past
the song of thrush
beyond me in the blurring leaves
once so clearly—
crinkled, shiny, and infant green….
___
As a child I held on to nothing
for dear life
I could cup a storm in my hands!
Could run with the rhythm of a horse!
I could fly in my mind’s eye
if the ferns I used were only wings!
If I pretended hard enough
I could eat my own home-baked mud pies!
If only I could be—
more than a fledgling of eight
so earthbound, clumsy
___
But while the lilacs were out of town
thunder met the flash
and gutted summer!
I ran for dear life!
from the amazing distance of its echoes
pelted by its gentle gift
Snagged by growing things—
the clinging prattle
of their momentous tendrils....
____
Lovers run off the path
past water lilies
along the swollen veins to the river
toward a grave and pounding heart
The Ancient Flood was jealous....
Now when the wind softens
and rain is tossed
last, and only from the leaves
may their encore be cupped in the hands
of some passer-by
Remembering—
that either because of a trifling wind
or the weight of time...
a tree fell here
clubbing the river’s bank senseless
Of course it makes a sound.
I will always believe this. Why I still write.
I'm so thankful for HP.
