Watching as the automaton
sketched lines across a sheet
of art paper, I wondered
what messages I might send
from the hereafter—
Even the dead elm tree
still glows pale green,
grey bark hosting small
bits of incandescence.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
OTHER POSTS IN THE SERIES
- Landscape, in the Aftermath of Flood
- A Carol
- Little Winter Song
- Because it is years since I last saw you
- Landscape, with Remnants of a Tale
- En Crépinette
- Luces
- Clearing
- Postscript
- Animus
- Improvisation
- New
- My mother turns 78 and texts
- [poem temporarily removed by author]
- [post temporarily removed by author]
- Dark Body
- Oír
- Rezar
- Inflorescence
- Midpoint
- Chalk Circle
- Oracle
- Mermaids
- Tarot: False Spring
- Making Dinner, I Hear Rostropovich on the Radio
- Field Notes
- Aragonaise
- Road Trip, ca. 1980
- Gold Study
- Triptych
- Marker
- Serif
- Compline
- Ghazal Par Amour
- White List
- Dear noisy stream gurgling in the distance,
- Between
- First, Blood
- Aura
- Mirador
- Rock, Paper, Scissors
- Interrogations
- Thread and Surface
- Maquette
- Legacy
- Diorama, with Mountain City and Fog
- Preparing the Balikbayan Box
- The Jewel in the Fruit
- Lumen
- Landscape, with Geese; and Later, Falling Snow
- Illusion
- Landscape, with Threads of Conversation
- Chroma
- First One, Then the Other
- Apostrophe
- Provision
- To Silence
- Morning, Cape Town
- Empty Ghazal
- High in the hills, the dead
- Practice
- Besame,
- Index
- Augury
- Dear unseen one,
- Bindings
- Saturday Afternoon at the Y
- Dear Epictetus, this is to you attributed:
- How have I failed to notice until now
- Cusp
- Field Note
- Dear shadow,
POST POSTSCRIPT
If leaving were easy and found myself
in a hereafter, I might find these words
for you (if thoughts and our pillow-talk
could still cut through the walls-on-walls
of dark nights and blank sheets stiffened
into cold knife-edged shields guarding
against our talking to each other again):
“Leave the window open, let the branch
grow close to it, you will find me there
scrambling among bridges of moonlight,
starlight, sunlight, even flickers from your
turned-down lamps, singing those little
songs I always sang to keep the fine rhythm
of my pats on your thighs, caresses to put
you to sleep on warm nights you thought
were not made for slumber or some such.”
“Post Postscript” is also reposted in http://ambitsgambit.blogspot.com/2011/12/two-poems-for-new-year-2012-bma.html