Sun and Shadow

Scar Tissue by Charles Wright

The insect world has no tongue to let loose, and no tongue to curb,Though all day and all night it cries out.Who says we shouldn’t listen to them?Who says we shouldn’t behave ourselves as they do,                     no noise but for one purpose?

Whatever the root sees in the dark is infinite.
Whatever the dead see is the same.
Listen, the rivers are emptying
               under our feet,
Watched over by all the waters of the underworld.

No Contest

1. Poet 0, Microphone 1

2. Poetry reading 1, Change bells practice 100

3. Sunshine 1,000,000,000

Dogwood Winter on the Way

Last Supper

by Charles Wright

I seem to have come to the end of something, but don’t know what,

Full moon blood orange just over the top of the redbud tree.

Maundy Thursday tomorrow,

                         then Good Friday, then Easter in full drag,

Dogwood blossoms like little crosses

All down the street,

                    lilies and jonquils bowing their mitred heads.

Perhaps it’s a sentimentality about such fey things,

But I don’t think so. One knows

There is no end to the other world,

                                    no matter where it is.

In the event, a reliquary evening for sure,

The bones in their tiny boxes, rosettes under glass.

Or maybe it’s just the way the snow fell

                                         a couple of days ago,

So white on the white snowdrops.

As our fathers were bold to tell us,

                                    it’s either eat or be eaten.

Spring in its starched bib,
Winter’s cutlery in its hands. Cold grace. Slice and fork.