The Clearing That Is The Trees

    "They know they are going to the filth of numbers and laws,
    to the games anyone can play, and the work without fruit."
    Lorca

    I want to go walking in troubled marshes
    where cold gray coves leave off the mind
    and the scent of rushes twist the wind
    as fall covers dungeons of angry sparrows.

    I want to go quickly to troubled marshes,
    hear the squeak of brackish waters
    over crocks of sponge bubbles crabbing
    their surface.

    I desire stands of dead brush
    to wave in grave solemnity,
    whimpering little houses
    off forest glades to flicker
    out lamps with
    large dogs poised on verandahs
    like stone gargoyles.

    I want to handle anguish as if
    it were an interesting bauble
    plucked from the shallows,
    a curious snail with ritual markings
    or a mauve shellfish
    caught in swift eddies
    as the tide goes out.

    I want to examine canker introspection
    as a peevish child might
    faint tracings on an old stone
    lodged in the most forgotten
    corner of a graveyard;
    sample its wonders
    fingering the many indentations
    with more than slight awe
    or hear the crashing of waves
    far off from the physical restraint
    of the marsh or this forgotten
    burial plot so near an angry sea.
    Then, awaken as if from a dream,
    rub troubled memories from my eyes
    but never the brain
    for on winter nights just before
    retiring as the wind stirs packets
    of snow or the moon is chased
    by skeletal hounds along Gretal trees,
    there will come the realization
    another day is thru
    with another night to pilot away
    fresh brush & rubble
    before emerging, at night's end,
    from the clearing that is
    the trees.