In Defense of Melancholy

At least once a week
I walk into the city of bricks
where the rubies grow

and the killers await
the coming of doves and cats.

I pass by the homes of butchers
and their knives sharpened by insomnia

to the river of black sails
and the torn-up sea and the teeth of dogs.

She waits for me in a narrow bed,
watching the rain
that gathers on the broken street

and the weak light of dusk
and the singing trees.
 

Credit

Copyright © 2015 by Pablo Medina. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on August 17, 2015, by the Academy of American Poets.

About this Poem

“I wrote this poem after one of my walks through Boston, my adoptive city. You can't fight melancholy, you can only join her as she listens to the trees, moved to singing by the rain.”
Pablo Medina