Poetry

Fall the deep curtains,
delicate the weave,
fair the thread:

My weekday undernsong is shared by those
Within the vaulted subway who are close
And ghostly creatures. Occasionally the face
Of votive pallor, timid and intent,
Lifts through the heads and hats of commonplace
And with the shy mouth smiles...

Whether like a deer lightly on talented feet,
scholar of brambles, incredible racer of meadows,
intuitive knower of leaves and the leaves’ shadows,
antlered with boughs to disguise the shallow retreat,—

Past crag and scarp
At length, way won;
And done
The chert’s sharp
 Incision,

Grape-treader Time,
Bald curator of joys
Plucked ere a prime;
Whose guest the weevil is,

The cat nosed around the hummingbird
but didn’t want him. Sweet bird,
his throat feathers go black

Of the church across the street with the 
busted window
of the church’s chimney blowing no 
smoke
of the blue sky behind the chimney
of the vultures perched there spreading 
their wings to dry in the day’s heat
of the beak that pecks the feathers...

Death, too, is in Arcadia. Outside, Billy labors
the push mower over the backyard’s topography, lunar
with moles, the false hills that give way to the craters
of their homes.

Over the past fourteen days how many days have you felt
        blue?
For none of the time for some of the time for all of the time for all time