Dear Dana,
Cold out this morning, but
one cricket still managed
a sclerotic chirp. I watched
parallel furrows form
in the clouds to the east,
five lines. A large flock
of grackles flew across them,
accompanied by the usual
scattered notes. If I’d snapped
a photo at that precise moment,
there might’ve been a score
someone could play.
Instead, I sat thinking
how I’d like my own notes
to be so lightly anchored
to the page: an antidote
for all the heaviness
our tribe of meaning-makers
has inflicted on the world.
I am lodged in this body
not like a businessman
in some motel but like
a meteorite at the center
of a target its own impact created,
glowing for a short time
with the heat of its entry.
The truth isn’t out there
between the stars. The cricket
kept chirping in the herb bed,
and beyond, the wild rose
almost leafless now as the color
deepens in its shrinking
wrinkled capsules,
which are said to heal.
__________
UPDATE: We’ve decided to broaden this conversation and invite others to join in, because why not? It’s a world-wide web. See Dana’s response to me, and Lirone’s response to Dana.
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Excellent, Dave. Language conversational, voice clear and beautifully constructed. If in first draft, I’d say it was pretty close to keeper status.
Yep, what Dick said…..your writing, always excellent, is even stronger when infused with such personal insights. Great job.
Thanks, Jo and Dick. I’m glad to hear this works from two of the online poets whose work I most admire. And hey, feel free to launch your own variation on this exercise. We’re kind of hoping this goes viral. (My inspiration for the correspondence was Braided Creek, by Jim Harrison and Ted Kooser – among the finest work of both poets.)