POETRY
For WS Merwin
Here I am just trying to save the world
with one love letter at a time.
Writing unfurls
slowly in a busy clime,
in the hothouse of a framework that hurls
challenges at me constantly. Effects
seem unlikely. Bravely
I pick daisies
and count the petals, aloof of all rejection
(just kidding, not really;
I’m too touch feely)
Hope keeps towing the line.
Not everything wields destruction.
I resist the anger I find;
in part, it’s my function
to not join in the hatefulness,
to cultivate instead the state
of understanding, charity, and gratefulness.
When I was younger I tried to run on
with your style, but I didn’t know
where the cordons
were meant to end. I was all show,
youth translating what it can find beyond
the familiar. In the plantation
of my teenage bedroom,
the world still loomed,
breathing heavily outside my walls. Trepidation
let my pen go to seed.
Not…
