Monday, March 12, 2001

Poetry Clinic: We Who Love The Sun


Hey. Long time no blog. Lots of ruminations on our recent DisneyWorld sojourn coming up: but let’s ease back in with this month’s Poetry Clinic patient—more’n a day late and more’n a dollar short, I know.

Another song lyric this time: ramshackle rapid-stammer garage-rock with a pseudo-uplifting chorus. In like a lion, don’cha know... this one’s called

We Who Love The Sun

I’ve been up all night but I lie here still
counting the crows that feed upon the roadkill
and I count one for sorrow I count two for joy
and I count three for a girl and I count four for a boy
and I count five for poverty and six for wealth
and I’m laid out on the grass still lying where I fell

the moon is falling
the clouds are breaking
and we who love the sun will see her face again


for fifteen days and nights it has been gray wherever I looked
the sky was like Antarctica hung upside down on hooks
in its continental contours it would crush us if it fell
we’ve been looking at that blankness like we’re chickens in the shell
but yesterday the rain hung strings of pearls across the trees
and at nightfall I could catch a hint of ocean on the breeze

the sky is cracking
the chill is fading
and we who love the sun will see her face again


I’m lying in the wet grass about a quarter-mile from dead
the sky along the eastern edge grows pink above my head
and somewhere there is singing and I’m crawling to my feet
my bones hold up my body like a clothesline holds a sheet
and the crows out on the roadside are still divvying up their meat
and the wind is in the pines and it is sweet sweet sweet sweet

the dawn is breaking
the wind is rising
and we who love the sun will see her face again


Loved it? Hated it? Suggestions for improvement? Talking points? Let me know...

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