Poetry

Blue fluid in my limbs,
momentum buoys me up
at takeoff speed

Half his life he parachuted
from open cockpits in swamp fog,
and the other madly scouted

An inundation! The sky’s ocean broke!
Hour after hour the dense fall drums on us,
So thick it almost hides the hills, like smoke.

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

Wildly dissimilar
yet actuated by the same fear,
the hippopotamus and the wild-deer
hide by the same river.

Now let the cycle sweep us here and there,
we will not struggle;
somewhere,
under a forest-ledge,
a wild white-pear
will blossom;

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...