Each
time I see that sunlit amber
I
remember, canopied over that
warm
earth, around which
everything
else turns for me
returning
always and again
to
that one place where
I
first heard my name.
I
saw your shape in the running
of
those shadows over the chill fields,
furrowed
and set for winter wheat
but
that light, broken out,
was
too far away for my taste.
I
said to myself, these marks on my soul
must
be from a severing-
my
farewells must be already said.
I
must be marked for returning.
Those
glittering lights, they couldn’t induce me
to
join that ringed and tattered circus,
though
I saw the billboards standing by the exit,
those
streetlights like runway lights
to
the caged and waiting.
Oh,
I waited in the parking lot for a while,
I
made a home out of plastic bags and coffee cups.
I
lived there long enough to know-
Up
over the sound barrier and the eight lanes of traffic,
through
the bunker and past the power plant, following
the
letter you left me in the cumulous
all
the way back to the green hills.
You
know I let the wind blow out all the furniture
We
never used most of it anyway.
Only
that warm earth, canopied over,
around
which everything else turns,
reflections
spinning out, like when
you
turn your face toward the sunlight.