Wednesday, June 1, 2016

After Reading Charles Wright on a Windy Day

The trees are always shaking
Yet we pretend that we don't feel;
It's the way we take it to something it's not
That makes us stand uneasy

While we continue confused, so hidden
We don't think of ourselves as real.
We claw at that first dart of identity
To pin hopes of honesty on

But the shroud, like persistent cloud cover,
Never lifts, the wind buffets and fills
Our clothes, our purpose is tossed like a stone
We may, so we hope, claim again

With generous mathematics and the tenacity
Of the condemned. All the while the world outside
Won't waver from its tasks; it knows to fill
The cistern up, without being asked,

And does not question humble things,
Like why the sky won't yield,
It merely lives in what's-not-passed,
Those self-sustaining springs.