creatures

 

The wind breaking
On the rutted road
Is like the voice
Of some other world
Calling through the early
Dark of spring.
And I lift my hand,
Which is your hand,
To thank the generous elements
Who have opened this tiny door
Between that blossoming other kingdom
And our own ruinous kind of being.

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trees from eight angles 

 

Invariably, these statues sing.
Wrought-up in the darkened landscape
By the combing wind

 

They sway in their emerald music

While overhead, the small muscles
Of the stars work the universe.

 

They are the old, gnarled fingers
From the earth’s deep clutches.
The towering alphabet from which the birds

 

Offer tiny lessons.
They carry little scraps of darkness
On their breezy shoulders

 

And drop them over us on summer days.
They eat the dead and resurrect
Their mottled bodies,

 

Offer fruit in the starving sun.
They give form to our endless families,
Dust upon inherited dust.

 

And when a great love has entered
Through our lives,
We lay our shared breath beneath them

 

While they drop, one by one,
Their perfect heart-shaped cherries

Into our dreaming mouths.

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