Words Are Just Some of the Lives of the Gone

Don’t mind the roars of the trucks
And the jets. You want the still

World back, yes, and you can get
There if you wait for a gap.

There, hear that? No roars, no hums.
Was this what the past was like?

Hm, well. For one thing, those roars
And hums you have to wait out

Just weren’t, and one can’t miss that
Which ain’t. You’re used to such roars

And can joy in their gaps. They
Who lived then could not do that,

Just as you can’t do, can’t know
How to do, what you do now

That souls will yearn to do, too,
When you’re long gone from this view.

Poem for a Poem, Tooth for a Tooth

No, none of us will know for sure
Who won on whom, who lost, got whipped—
Well, we might know some who were whipped.

Who won is a quick, blood-wet thing
That slips in the grip. If you win,
You have to try to keep your grip.

Some of us duck. We run and hide—
Hide where we are when we can’t run.
You think you can win? Fine. Go fight.

Thought, Track, or Trace

What will you leave?

The sun that burns

To make us all

Just burns and burns.

What can we do

That won’t fall in—

Earth, Moon and all—

When the sun fails?

It’s strange to think

We calm our thoughts

With how far off

That fall will be.

Way past our time!

We smile. We know.

Our bones will fall.

Don’t leave. Let’s go.