End of May
The sounds of earth start up a beautiful war.
All evening, miraculous freshets of rain announce how May
must end, like a novel full of blood and style.
I think today is one of mourning in little, out-of-the-way places,
and I think today the mourning will not be voiced
but will be heard among silent trees and rocks through which
we walk, hands in pockets, whistling, surprised to find each other.We live inside our curve of life, and want
that it continue. The man I dreamed I killed,
by the end of the dream he reappeared, tall and beautifully muscled;
police applauded, and my parents spoke to me again,
words of love shaped like flowers and fruit.I felt no shame at what I said to them that day.
A new sense of play and health filled up the lawn
in front of my church school home room.
No longer agitated, my heart no longer felt wearied
with details and fear of forgetting details,
and although I still get depressed too easily, and just as easily
fall in love, this body's doing, this heart's along.
James Cushing
from The Length of an Afternoon