Find and share the perfect poems.
To the night I offered a flower and the dark sky accepted it like earth, bedding for light. To the desert I offered an apple and the dunes received it like a mouth, speaking for wind. To the installation I offered a tree and the museum planted it like a man, viewing his place. To the ocean I offered a seed and its body dissolved it like time, composing a life.
Copyright © 2012 by Howard Altman. Used with permission of the author.
That we can breathe and not forget
our dreams entirely. In the cold sun
the warmth of timelessness. There is
panic, rest assured, so much beauty
stirring, I want to touch all that
contains me. We know the questions
and the light shifts without a word.
In the clouds, a philosopher’s chair
rocks. In the riverbed, the buff
and lathe of stones, change glistening
past. And from the afternoon, drops
of her monthly blood drip down
the stairs, the kitchen table, all of her
unopened bills, a cold floor that timed
History sits on a chair
in a room without windows.
Mornings it searches for a door,
afternoons it naps.
At the stroke of midnight,
it stretches its body and sighs.
It keeps time and loses time,
knows its place and doesn’t know its place.
Sometimes it considers the chair a step,
sometimes it believes the chair is not there.
To corners it never looks the same.
Under a full moon it holds its own.
History sits on a chair
in a room above our houses.