Sunday, September 4, 2011

the question

She likes to walk in the old cemetery
on weekdays when others are living.
If a sudden rain breaks through sunshine,
the summer elm and oak leaves make music.
If sudden rain does not break through sunshine,
the silence is a muffled voice of great irony.

Others in the city carry too much gravity.
They weigh down moments with talking,
and they look too hard through eye colors.
They are living and it is a horrible thing
to carry one's bones around so naturally!
The colors of their eyes are almost painted.
Do they blink? Eyes can be so alarming, noisy.
They make her small notebook tremble blankly.

But here the bones are very still.
And flowers left in remembrance
are simply dreaming in sunshine,
left by creatures who quickly fall
back into grimaces and laughter.

Here among those with better manners,
she will stop to sketch an imagined poem
of dragon winds perplexing the Gobi night.

2 comments:

  1. ...eyes can be so alarmingly noisy...

    I read it that way, and find it true. They speak. Oh hell yes. And moments ARE burdened with speech, and some are created with speech. Strands of a rope, twisting, knotted. It all looks different side to side.

    Gorgeous poem Tim! Man you have a gift.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you, Annie, for taking a poem inside like you do, with encounter and interaction.

    ReplyDelete