If the bare trees at the glass were kings
really, I would know they bend over in grief,
mourning their lost brilliant crowns that
they can only watch, not reach as, beneath them,
they let go of all color all flash all sway,
it would be better, I wouldnât have to say no
they are not kings, they are trees, I know this,
and if they bend it is wind only, it is nature,
isnât it also indifference? Passing yesterday
the bodies that, wrapped and wrapped, lay
sprawled above the steam as it left the vents
of my city, I could only fumble for the words
(dead lamb, dead lamb) to some song to sing
parts of, I gave, but what I gave - is it
right to say it helped no one, or can I say
I brought lullaby, sealed a thin life,
awhile longer, in sleep? What is failure?
âHaving read how there were such things as
orchard lamps for keeping the good fruit, on
colder nights, from freezing, I was curious
for that kind of heatâ go the lines from
a poem I never finished. The shorter version
is: once, twice, in a difficult time, I have
failed you. No poetry corrects this. But
does it mean we donât love? In the last poem
of you waking, I am any small bird, unnoticed,
above, watching; you are the traveler who
canât know (there is fog, or no stars, a steep
dark) that the all but given up for impossible
next town is soon, soon. Come. We turn here.