Slow Return
Something lies half-buried,
waiting.
Silence has its holding place in cracks,
crevices, erosions. On overgrown corners,
thistles raise their spears, rocks their humps.
Weeds tighten roots in a stranglehold of green.
Vines twist through rotting lumber to crown
the house before the slow return, beyond lines
of shatter, back to a dream of animals again.
Hidden from the world
in a couch of grass
and leaves, secure from storms that pass, I
depend on old migrations, a slow measuring
of ends and where blindness leads, I follow.
Above ground scrub grass bristles and the scent
of danger's everywhere but I know how safe
a safe distance under earth is and how far.
The 2River View, 3_1 (Fall 1998)