By Dan Beachy-Quick
The senseless leaf in the fevered hand
Grows hot, near blood-heat, but never grows
Green. Weeks ago the dove’s last cooing strain
Settled silent in the nest to brood slow
Absence from song. The dropped leaf cools
On the uncut grass, supple still, still green,
Twining still these fingers as they listless pull
The tangle straight until the tangle tightens
And the hand is caught, another fallen leaf.
The poetry of the earth never ceases
Ceasing — one blade of grass denies belief
Until its mere thread bears the grasshopper’s
Whole weight, and the black cricket sings unseen,
Desire living in a hole beneath the tangle’s green.
Source: Poetry (January 2013)
Poet Bio
More Poems about Living
Meanwhile
From the Sky
When I die,
bury me in the sky—
no one is fighting over it.
Children are playing soccer
with empty bomb shells
(from the sky I can see them).
A grandmother is baking
her Eid makroota and mamoul
(from the sky I can taste them).
Teens are writing love...
More Poems about Love
As Winds That Blow Against A Star
After Love
There is no magic any more,
We meet as other people do,
You work no miracle for me
Nor I for you.
You were the wind and I the sea—
There is no splendor any more,
I...
More Poems about Nature
Listening in Deep Space
We've always been out looking for answers,
telling stories about ourselves,
searching for connection, choosing
to send out Stravinsky and whale song,
which, in translation, might very well be
our undoing instead of a welcome.
We launch satellites, probes, telescopes
unfolding like origami, navigating
geomagnetic storms, major disruptions.
Rovers...
At the Equinox
The tide ebbs and reveals orange and purple sea stars.
I have no theory of radiance,
but after rain evaporates
off pine needles, the needles glisten.
In the courtyard, we spot the rising shell of a moon,
and,...