I’m alone with the moon every night
And I hear in the crickets talk my missing place.
Without the prizes given to the worst of poems
How would we know what to value?
Without professional poets
How would we know what can’t be bought?
I’ve lived for 30 years on the outside of the gate
And heard the anxious laughs of those inside,
The aspirations to mediocrity,
The heartfelt applause when it’s finally achieved -
It sounds so much like my own family
But I’ve found much closer ties to rocks and sticks
And I can no more tell if I’m still ashamed of failure
Or if genius just makes everything corrupt.
The cool evenings of fall will soon arrive
With students trying to lose their innocence as quickly as they can
To finally learn that wisdom can’t be found.
It’s better that I, who learned a few wise phrases the hard way
Must be kept away.
It was like yesterday these courtyards gave me purpose,
I mastered every art of tribal speech, praised every first brave leap,
Chased the blossoms down most highly prized in court.
But one day I was real, and the bouquet I gathered was not,
And I think about them all most every day.
I wish I hadn’t cared about my poems.
It seems I've spent my whole life drawing peacocks
In a world full of squirrels.
Their song goes on next door while I learn absence,
To lean so close to heaven I’m non-existent.
Their noise drowns out a sparrow’s call
And I ask my son if anyone still writes poems.
"You do," he replies, and goes back to his game.
I can’t stay here in this heavy air much longer
Knowing I’ll never be summoned.
They sew up every loneliness like winter clothes inside the gate
While still I argue with them, with the moon,
Against what has no defense, and I always lose.
Brand-new scholars have come to argue scripture, give corrections,
And each distinction peels back like an onion
To leave no layer for masters, or distant others,
So it comes to how punctual the tea is served,
How warm the cup when it is poured.
I guess I brush for life, they brush for favor.
The lone wolf’s cry, they say, is beautiful
Because the grief never ends, the call never answers.
The cries of the pack are too soon resolved,
The smallest ink of grief is all that’s required.
