Landscape without gods

Once I had a sapphire set
     into a ring, a gold chain,

a locket of clamped tendrils  
     with a clasp. And you had a map

showing which parts of the hills
     your family once owned. Once

I had a spoon yoked to a fork,
     one case to house two appetites.

This is the way all things
     enchanted us until time

put them on a raft and pushed
     them into the bubbling current.

One cannot grow wise without living
     inside of history. One tries to feed

the fire which is always about to go
     out. Out in the fields, the dry,

crackling heads of sunflowers billow 
     like waves. We watch from the porch,

whittling what's left of morning
     into a sun we might raise like a flag.

We hide from clouds shaped like bulls
     or swans, trees in which souls are trapped.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.