Classic Poem

Morning is a dog with failing hindquarters:
It can no longer chase the thrown stick.


Crossing the avenue in Seattle,
I step in front of a bus
and leap clear. In Boston I stare
into the blazing warehouse,
eager for fire, terrified to burn.


You are alive when you love someone
and lie with her making the spoons.
You are alive when dead love
cuts the cords behind your knees.


Nuthatches and chickadees
eat cells of blackoil sunflower seed,
swapping their perches, gorging
their stomachs full. I feel hunger
for their hunger, for the appetite,
so swiftly satisfied, of little ones.


This morning the cat
stretches awake, yawning,
after a dream of sparrows,
sky clears into sky,
clouds scudding, mountain
lofty in morning light.
I enter again the province
of words, domain
without clocks or despair.











From Poetry Magazine Vol. 187, no. 6, March 2006 used with permission