Listening

I couldn't wedge a word into your grieving,
not as long as you whispered rhymes down dark
holes in the earth to a face you thought you saw
looking up with dead eyes from the ground.
I could have made two crops from seed to shock,
I could have worn out two good walking sticks
while you talked to a scarecrow of a man,
groaning to every ticking pin oak leaf
the hunt was over. I couldn't speak, not
till you left off talking to your face in black
stumpwater- and talked to me! I wouldn't answer!
For I'm not in the ground, nor the sky either.
I am a live man walking with you,
wanting to throw a shadow into life.

from Dialogue With A Dead Man, 1974 ©

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