9.19.12
First night in the new world.
Outside,
a good storm.
Where are you?
Wind. A place
called wind,
the most honest place
in the universe, where people
sing songs to wake up
the people they love.
There are no alarm clocks,
just loving people, and poems
about blackberries,
and a steady wind through wind
that clears disease.
The first person I ever loved
lives here. And I wave
to her in the windy street -
all the streets are cobblestone -
and at meals I set a place for her
like I did when I was a child.
Wind has no children.
And so no guilt.
When someone dies,
they are wind-swept
away
in a grand funeral of tears
and bonfire, and there are no hospital beds
with broken rails, no leftover morphine bottles.
There are wildflowers, goldenrod this time of year,
and joe-pye weed, and bone-set,
a wild feast, hen-of-the-woods,
sweet cicely and acorn flour cakes,
and no one regrets
knowing the dead.
Good;
I know
so many.
