Saturday, August 10, 2013

August 10th


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.