Steal Gods

You could say it was a trope
If I wrote we work like ants
And sing like frogs in spring pools,

And you would be right as rain
As well as wrong. We do sing
In massed, loud groups of roped tunes—

We do move vast troves of earth.
These are things we do, not things
We steal from lives not quite ours.

My point is that we’re a part
Of what this gob of rock does
And does a lot. If we steal,

We steal from gods whom we stole
From our songs as our songs tuned
Our words to steal gods from us.

The Town That Did Not Drown

Like most folks, I keep the faith
For things I would like to be

Truths that are not true,
That could not be true—

I save my faith for those things.
Why waste faith on what could be

A true thing all on its own?

An Oak or an Owl Can Be Coal

If they die but do not rot—
Coal comes from death that did not

Go back, the most part, to life.
Poised on the edge of the knife,

With one side of the blade peat
And the far side air that eats

And breaks and brings back to breath
The strain that was eased by death,

What was, for a short while, oak
Must come down as ghost or smoke.