Fence Strands Hum in the Wind

Long and barbed but thin,
Waist of God and wit of men,
Lines you beg to cinch you in—

We don’t mean to keep you out.
We stretch to close the null sign.
We grow to slow down the world.

We’re the beasts you groom and tend,
The trap you hope holds you safe,
Your love of thorns with latched gates.

You don’t know the point we’re from,
How far we go, where this ends.
We lean. Now and then, we bend.

Where the Snow Years Past Piled Deep, This Dry Grass Looks Like Wheat

It’s all off, all wrong,
Shouts mind in the mind—
Too warm and too dry
And at the wrong time—

But the eyes love it,
And it’s kind to skin,
And there’s so much light
That hope seeps back in.

It will all come right,
The drought and the heat.
The world will not die,
And death will be sweet.