No Wind Phone

Would you like to bring us news?
We who have been left have faith,

Weird faith, that the dead want news
From us of life. Why would you?

We don’t know a thing of you
In your no place of the gone.

Why would you not have some news,
Much news, all the real, new news?

We make, some of us, the trip,
The long trip to the Wind Phone,

Where three hours can pass in talk
To the air, the gone, the dead,

And most folk come with their news
To share with their lost loved ones.

Do you come, do you come close,
If not to the phone, the wind,

And want, and ache to talk back,
To give us all the real news

We need to know, the hard news
That you’re not there, the good news

That one day we won’t be here,
One day we won’t need the wind?

Grit, True or False

We don’t know why you love
Some of us so damn much,
Pick us up, then drop us,

Toss us like seeds, like dust
To spread on the four winds.
We fly, too much of us,

Of one or two of us,
The new-loved words, caught phrase,
Brief fling with a fresh seme.

You pick us up like grit—
Grit here, grit on your shoes,
Grit in your hair, grit there—

Right now, grit’s just the best.
You mouth it. You praise grit.
Some of you grit your teeth.

The next day, you may swoon
For a new one of us.
There goes grit. Grit’s all gone.

Each next day, a new term
To love and spread like dust.
Grit or grist, love mills us.

More Else

No one has thoughts
No one else has
Or has had had
Or will have had.

We can’t prove this,
But you’ve thought this,
Too, true? A wren
Sings on the wall.

Snow’s left the blooms
On the peach tree,
No great harm done.
Spring will be spring.

Like no one, days
Have no thoughts days
Don’t have, have not
Had, will not have.