The Descent (audio only)
Click the icon above to listen to this audio poem.
Loneliness is not an accident or a choice.
It’s an uninvited and uncreated companion.
It slips in beside you when you are not aware that a
choice you are making will have consequences.
It does you no good even though it’s like one of the
elements in the world that you cannot exist without.
It takes your hand and walks with you. It lies down
with you. It sits beside you. It’s as dark as a shadow
but it has substance that is familiar.
It swims with you and swings around on stools.
It boards the ferry and leans on the motel desk.
Can she be planted where the corner of the garden’s rocks are down?
I would like bleeding heart or fuchsia to redden the banks
In their brief seasons. Rain, rain, Irish rain.
Diamonds on the stamens when the sun goes blind.
And sweet pea, pale pink, pale blue, perfume.
Please, if you can, make sure there is an ash tree, young and tight and green.
Remember judge and you shall
Be judged
For laughing in school, for being
Stupid and always wrong.
Penance like the scent of the sheep
Is slow O’ weary, its coat
A kind of fluff that goes up
In filament theory.
Your own life ahead follows you
Like a scientist posing as a shepherd.