From Sadie & Mendel:
Explaining Fountains to a Child
Mendel, take heart.
Water throws itself into the air,
tossed from a clear-cut birth to the very heights
of infancy—like you, Mendel,
like you caught up in your own laughter
as it bubbles over.
The sweet taste, however,
is brief, and even if a thousand and one jeweled drops
are singing, glowing, shimmering,
there are strings attached.
Turning back
like a slow curve of misgivings,
a head leans into a palm
like the burdens secreted by clouds,
or the ticker-tape effect
of love giving way
to the matter of who will clean it up.
I am sorry but that’s how it is.
The rain rains blows on the spitting image
of itself. Faces dim in the sly pull
of undercurrent,
the loss heavier than pennies,
the effort naïve.
But take heart, Mendel.
By having come this far, inventing
so much out of nothing
now we have a wish.
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From Internal Strategies:
Momentum
How we arrived at this has nothing to do
with any assertion of right or wrong
scaled to a point of view.
Where we will be has strained
through repair so many times, it's useless
to pretend we know the way.
Footsteps erode underneath us
with all the lights extinguished
going up the stairs.
While asleep, our ears ring
where musicians gathering notes
will not tell its key.
But in the end, where we'll gain momentum,
there is a wellspring,
a velocity of everyday events
and the usual view.
And made there by hand, this moment
alive next to the skin
to transport us.