The Great Dyeu

To the eye, just two bright dots
Of light, like stars, but not—

So close, at a glance, they’re one,
Each a glass for the sun.

But they’re not close, of course, no
More than they’re stars. We know

Things now. Which one has the rings,
Which the most moons—those things

That don’t stop us from long stares
Up through the near clear air.

All our words and counts told us
Those were gods in our dusk.

Pear Core

We can make it speak. Here:
I am not waste. I am

Seeds, wet, brown, white, and coarse.
I have been tossed or left,

I’m not sure which, down here
On the floor of the world.

The sun is in the south,
But bright. Not far from me,

The skull of a finch lies
In the grass, a few shreds

Of skin left near the neck.
I can’t move. I will change,

But I could, through time’s quirks,
Last in some form for years.

The Board Game and the Pen

They hold their tales.
The pen came down
The years from jail,
Pen of the pen.

It’s safe. It bends.
We use it still
To keep the scores
For the board game,

Which we bought when
The snow was gone,
And there were hours
And hours and hours

To fill. We sat
And played past dusk
Back then. We kept
Score with the pen.

It’s Time We Thought More of Them

Than would I the dull, gone eyes.
They used to scour rain but chose
To be like flags. No, that’s wrong.

Don’t rub it out. That’s a lie
On top of what was just wrong.
They’re out there, they’re all that’s there,

Your pasts and our pasts. You can’t
Get rid of them. You will just
Make more of them to hide them.

Who knows how they go at last?
More and more mean less and less,
And what is of what was crowds

Out the rest of what was, then
Some things that were now were not.
Those are them, the souls of loss,

Of deep sleep and death, all those
That don’t show in mind or math.
We should save them since you can’t.