FLOWER POEM
ELLENSBURG, 1995
WILDCAT PUBLICATIONS
Cover drawing by Cheryl Wentworth
FLOWER POEM
Gladness linked to
madness to amuse you.
Characters move—
rhythms, waves of color
flowers.
They whisper to me.
I am a privileged guess.
They let me do as I please.
They do as they please.
In the core of the bud
is fire,
the bone of desire.
.
I knew
when a moth flew out
of the moon's eye
the dead
would teach me
to love.
.
There are stars
in the branches of the trees.
The moon's windows
open and close.
It's right
there
DANCE
DANCE
DANCE
.
Her eyes are for me
to see her heart.
While she moves into mine
I move into hers.
The grave, cold, simple—
ordained
in the see.
.
New directions,
old directions, each
is eaten in time,
each star,
seed,
stone.
.
Moon moves
mind into fragments.
Visitation comes
wordless, shapeless.
It is sweet, the taste
of a tree, children running,
guns clicking,
that shaking of my head,
needles too— a place
in space,
song, bird, word,
word, heard third.
.
The moon is a flower.
The day is a song.
Let the dog bark
down the hall of fading portraits,
my face in the mirror—
above a broken vase.
Her mouth quivers.
She sees humor
in the antics of the man
trying.
.
There is a cemetery
in the mind
We look for it—
nine times nine times nine
nails, needles, trains, trees—
often ten.
The moon is a flower.
This is to say
I love to say
I love.
