Apr/May 2017 Poetry |
Photographic image © 2017 Stuart Gelzer
Significance
Pain makes me matter.
My blossoming leg muscles ache
and my mind dances as thunder sweeps
through the face of a storm. This is the miracle
that miracles won't stop.
Old sunlight made of memory in cracked
glass makes me move to recent wonder.
One delight leads to another
until joy leads to nothing at all. The rain falls,
steady as light shedding the weight
of the world, making the earth consistent
with its burden. Not even a snail crosses
the path of my suffering.
In the woods I can find the river and follow
it as if I were following the veins
of my wrists, but I cannot find the city,
which reveals neither hide nor hair
of its material existence.
Everyone who seeks starlight looks
for the place in his body
where he is pierced and he finds a hole
leading to the end of his affairs,
the concourse through his common night.