IS IT SO ALIEN

that grieving savages placed bone whistles
and vertebra beads in their children's graves, reminders
of light and air they marveled in before
dark spilled behind their eyes and thickened

them to a stare,--promises too that woods
and sun would float in their eyes again like willows
upsidedown on slow rivers of sky?
In the museum of your childhood you may see relics

on display, like pebbles in a deep spring
magnified: a ball your mother or father fetched
from under whispering trees when darkness drove
you in, or a doll you held when the current of silence

turned the black room around and you were lost,
drifting farther and farther from voices on fainter
and fainter banks,--a doll smelling of just
this morning, a ball garnished by the green world,

round and certain as tomorrow's sun.

from Nostalgia for 70, 1986 ©

Previous | Next