Long Defeat

poem #138

photo by the author

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Then it’s simple, the stood-for things: 
over the stele the sun in the wind...
the honeysuckle bowed to the bee...
All the arrangements have been made—

      but look at you my dear, in wild grass,
your dark summer dress, 
charging against the forgettable hill,
smiling and laughing, calling back

      words that drown before
they reach so low, so heavy 
an altitude as mine. This is not yet
glory, but it’s grace. Which way 

      do I move: back with your word to the road,
where the wandering sweep of your arm 
has bloodlessly claimed every detail,
or toward you, against your unravelled replies?

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