Two Poems

Hard Energy

The sea cries with its meaningless voice.
It flies through itself like light. It sails
into broken syllables of want
like a woman looking backward.

And it is large. And it grows larger—
a force determined
washing over the world.

I'm reminded of
hard energy, like the stars.

Cento Sources: Ted Hughes, Michael Ryan, Courtney Hitson, Naomi Shihab Nye, Stephen Dobyns, Robin Shectman, R. T. Smith, Christopher Presfield, Thom Gunn

 

As if Language Resisted Death

I keep looking around me
for what isn't there. Yet somewhere
the pulse of a phrase
does not vanish.

I believe in the soul, so far,
behind the foaming flesh.

Like all things, the secrets reorder the order of our language.

Cento Sources: Philippe Jaccottet, Mary Oliver, Liz Beasley, Helen Degen Cohen, Gary Soto, Charles Simic, Wendy Barker, Jessamyn Birrer