WALKING ALONG THE ROAD WE STOP NEAR A STREAM IN SPRINGTIME

This poem is from a forthcoming book THE NIGHT MARKET.

WALKING ALONG THE ROAD WE STOP NEAR A STREAM IN SPRINGTIME

You have found bits of song caught

In the spillway of a beaver dam.  They

Are church-like in their praising.  They shake

The collection of sticks

Piercing the face of the dam like so many

Bayonets.  A rain begins and spills

Upon the surface of the pool, each drop a book,

A crowd, a child, a Golden Heart singing to the fools,

To what is left of the dancers, the poor shoulders

Of the river made to bear a cascade of tears.

They have built a monument on the edge

Of a cliff.  It is impossible to get close enough

To look at it without plunging into the mind of God.

We stand watching the little fires in its towers,

The pitiful way it seems to contemplate the end

Of  day.  A vibrant eye peers from every window,

Some of them weep as only ones who have seen murder 

Can weep.  Ships send up flares to illuminate this place.

We walk along the edge of the pond where the grass

Grows tall and yellow.  We stop and kiss each other

Before deciding to lie in this place and create

Another world, full of wings and the silence invented by snow.

We are unquenchable as acrobats before the highest throne.

House, knife, wonder, tears, cold, a flute,

Lambs, bridges, hills, the beautiful dark,

Silver bells opening like journeys, a crying,

Weaving a web around the heart that it may

Not break.  All of the heavens resting

In the corners of your smile.