in the orchard
Why are these old, graceful trees
so beautiful, while I am merely
old and gnarled?
​
If I had leaves, perhaps, or apples...
if I had bark instead
of this lined skin,
​
maybe the wind would wind itself
around my limbs
in its old sinuous dance.
​
I shall bite into an apple
and swallow the seeds.
I shall come back as a tree.
at the end of the 19th century
A boneyard of old poems
rusts away, stanza
​
by creaking stanza.
Odes lose their polish;
​
couplets are torn
apart. And in a fertile
​
land, the odor
of free verse seeps
​
into the groundwater.
fireflies
here come
the fireflies
​
with their staccato
lights
​
their tiny headlamps
blinking
​
in silence
through the tall grass
​
like constellations
cut loose
​
from the night
sky
​
(see how desire
transforms
​
the plainest
of us)
​
or flashes of insight
that flare
​
for a moment
then flicker out