April 27, 2009

I thought I'd post a couple of new poems, one very much related to the ripening spring, the other based in a more internal landscape. First, a political poem for, literally, the girl next door:

The Last Girl

In the summer dusk, we came out like fireflies,
the neighborhood children, swarming the best
back yards. At the Sedlack’s, a long grassy span
for football. At the O’Brien’s, a forest of shrubs
for hide and seek. It felt like freedom, like a taste
of being adult, running those blocks in the almost
dark, at home in the space between homes.

All last spring, the next-door neighbor’s yard
was loud with backhoes and workers, building
a basketball court for the youngest. Her mother says
she wants to go pro. At maybe thirteen, she has
long straight hair and serious legs, almost never
smiles. She’s out there every day, and always alone.

And I think, what if children running the streets
are like frogs or salmon? What if their disappearance
means we’ve wrecked the world past repair? What if
she — I don’t know her name — becomes the last girl
left on earth who will play outside? At night, I hear
the shake and swing of the metal basket chains.
Two points, then three. Two points, then three.

The next poem is part of a sequence I've been working on based in the lives of spiritual or religious contemplatives. It's an attempt to create, in a poem, the sense of the meditating self, and the interior space we enter when we medtiate, or contemplate, or pray.

Within This Place of Longing, I Am

almost always waiting, singing what is
and is not sadness, both inside and out
of time. Within this almost silent place,
they linger, changing places — lovers,
losses, missing feelings — falling in
and outside of time. Still, we say
it is sweet to be here, now within this
spacious emptiness, place of almost
never knowing, where we are longing,
inside and out. Which is what we sing.