Poetry Wednesday: “The Grass, the Earth”

I’m headed down to NYC to catch a concert and to celebrate a pending birthday. This poem has been in my computer for a couple of years, fussed with and ignored in equal measure, so figured I’d throw it out there. Just because.

THE GRASS, THE EARTH

he was puttering in the yard

spreading fertilizer w/ a coffee can

alone except for the failing sun

& all that sky above

what did he think when his heart

gave out?

was there that flash of knowing bright as foil

the glimmering chord of a twelve-string

struck? a chime of bells,

what the bells told:

—————–death on the lawn,

they tolled him

so

I imagine

he lay half-broken, half-dreaming

I’ll take tiger mountain by dawn . . .”

—–& maybe find a little boat

conjure some small craft to carry me

across

——-((be sure to place pennies on my lids

to pay the ferryman

& so with a push set out splash upon the water

yes always drawn to that liquid space

of the mind, & the lively open air

maybe toss a line, see what bites

heading home, heading out — wind

in the face! –- hold near, hold steady

to that resting

place

——& splat I fell flat asunder

chopped down like an old oak, timber!

rotten to the core — damnedest thing, damnedest thing

I ever saw

did he gaze at a last white rock

& finally see the thing true & clear or say

an ant climbing a blade or

the clouds gray & immense above or

think of her

———–his wife his love his life

Annie watching television unawares

chomping on her famous glass of ice or

smell deep the grass, the earth

so rich the loam, so glad the glade

kind of amazing when you get right down

to it

—–the lateness of the hour . . .

—-

cue the fading

lights, curtains

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