The Last of Summer
We follow the meadows north,
the grass thinning into scree and sky
snagged on silver pines. It is cold, the way
a failed agenda cools, the way the dark
abbreviates the last of summer.
Breath shallow from the climb,
this reach of high ground shelters older gods—
corrals mustang chaparrals into a place
of weather sliding metal-edged, everything
below this broken trail discarded.
Scar ice patterns the heaved geology,
granite shifted into feathery sprays,
a doily rouche of landscape, of glaciers
thawed to footpaths and ascent.
The vastness dares us to be born.
It is as though we wait for something
larger than ourselves, and it is found,
met, given substance as a life
is made substantial, as a thing moving
without fear through clacking shadows.
The body is peeled, undressed of skin,
its brim of liquids, the meagre pulse
offered and accepted. This is the place
where air runs out, each next breath
luckier than the last.
We were born to pleasant gardens
and the secret of Greek hexameters,
a world that could be named.
There must have been a reason, a sign
or brand struck true into the rock.
We read the postures one by one,
this to court survival, this for pale clouds
the hoof-clout winds ignite to ritual red.
How greatly changed: each subtle charge
reverberates to catch the present tense.
The universe thins before it disappears,
a hex of starlight stretching
as the darkness widens.
Only the mind remains, only one name
remembered among powdery nebulae.
Here is the sun, a heathen light
balanced in the palm. Each breath
confirms the glint of stony media
and figures painted to attend,
restless, dancing tinder-edged in flame.
No comments:
Post a Comment