BLUING
The sky is blue, and bullets fly.
The sky is blue, and bullets fly.
The sky is blue, and bullets fly.
The sky is blue, and bullets fly.
Along a wild river and old villages,
Hung laundry and rubble,
Summer camp and freshwater, bullets fly.
The sky is blue, the sky is blue, the sky is blue.
In classrooms and in cinemas, in cafes
And in churches, in shopping malls and discos,
In barracks with flower beds and greenway, bullets fly,
Bullets fly, bullets fly, bullets fly.
In Sunday school amid bowed heads
And sacred texts, in parking lots
And on streets and highways, bullets fly.
Today, a man, a woman opens the door
To a blue sky, too blue,
The sky is blue.
The sky is blue.
The sky is blue.
The sky is blue.
OF THE EARTH
Leave the window, let the bed
receive you like a simple lover.
Hear the small wind that tugs
at the curtain, the universe’s soft arc.
Let childhood’s lunar moon return, how
it trails after you like a loyal friend.
For so long you’ve gone from
here to there,
sometimes alone,
with others like a flotilla of stars.
You’ve learned one truth, you are worthy
of the earth’s bitter roots. Sleep.
It’s okay no one knows your sorrow
just as they don’t know your joy.
Night still arrives for you, in splendor,
familiar as you own breath.
SUNSET OVER AMHERST
An empty gazebo.
After dinner.
The sky turns,
kinks
of the day
smoothed.
Few paths converged
here,
one to the lake,
the other to the road,
one more to our studio.
Uneven patches of grass,
unknown berries,
ivies wild
around the bend.
The moon has a chip.
Pen scratches on paper.