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