Sunday, March 02, 2014

Until we consent

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The Dead Do Not Stir

The dead do not stir this morning. Not with rain
this steady, streets below this quiet, everything
muffled as it is by slow clouds passing water.

To make themselves known would be to stand
out as first flowers in a spring meadow, draw bees
from the sweetest things in this undeterrable life.

No figures standing idly beneath windsullen trees,
smoke leaking from tight moues, the grimaced ache
of what it is to be seized by such persistent deadbeing.

No bouquets of overplated fare, no minced duckling
or bitterborn cherries to sugar the moments misspent
over a lifetime that might be so very welcome now.

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Instead they are nowhere to be seen, not among
fallen branches taken by the night, not among
tendrils seeking what lies just above replenishment.

The dead do not stir this morning because they
would take from us all we have been so briefly
given, all we are not about to relinquish just yet.

But the dead are patient, patient as rain. In still
provinces they will wait us out, one by one, until
we consent, reluctantly consent, to stir among them.

Joseph Gallo
March 2, 2014

 photo Dead-Stir1.jpg

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