Everything we cannot see
The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable.
~ James A. Garfield
~ James A. Garfield
Late Spring
June sky skews its hue, clouds cobalt
with a gathering promise of plenty—
faint, migratory, possessed of all the
dear brevity we have come to embrace.
In this life, we break things up into
quadrants, seasons—fields accruing,
fields diminishing, pieces of the sun
falling in patches we make patterns of.
If we learn one thing we must sacrifice
two. It has always been so. Ask a sunset
and a sunrise, or your grandmother with tubes
snaking out of her in the white hospital bed.
When I speak now of my children, they’re
still small, always still small in my mind,
the tambour of their high voices imprinted
in phrases and pronunciations that never ebb.
So here is the truth, the secret no one has
ever been able to keep: You will have one
moment, which is a series of moments, and
not a single moment more than the one.
June sky succumbs to marine fog that hangs
just above our heads. Coyotes wake and call,
quail scratch the seedless dirt, and everything
we cannot see sustains us because it simply must.
with a gathering promise of plenty—
faint, migratory, possessed of all the
dear brevity we have come to embrace.
In this life, we break things up into
quadrants, seasons—fields accruing,
fields diminishing, pieces of the sun
falling in patches we make patterns of.
If we learn one thing we must sacrifice
two. It has always been so. Ask a sunset
and a sunrise, or your grandmother with tubes
snaking out of her in the white hospital bed.
When I speak now of my children, they’re
still small, always still small in my mind,
the tambour of their high voices imprinted
in phrases and pronunciations that never ebb.
So here is the truth, the secret no one has
ever been able to keep: You will have one
moment, which is a series of moments, and
not a single moment more than the one.
June sky succumbs to marine fog that hangs
just above our heads. Coyotes wake and call,
quail scratch the seedless dirt, and everything
we cannot see sustains us because it simply must.
Joseph Gallo
June 9, 2014
June 9, 2014
post-time 10:49 AM
2 Comments:
Gosh your poetry is nice. I'm just sorry I don't visit your page more often.
I remember you. Glad you stopped by, Ani. I usually post 3 to 5 poems a month. :-)
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