On Not Writing a Love Poem
How do I say
what everybody says
as if it hasn't been said
by everyone?
What can I do
(considering all the dead)
that isn't banal, pretending
it hasn't been done?
There is no death,
love, birth, that isn't trite.
If all our apssions are long-
discovered islands
patterned with footprints,
a Sunday tourist sight,
let people (cupping their ears)
say, "Listen: what silence."
When I Am Dead, My Dearest
Sing what you want to sing. Theologize.
Let anyone who wants to lie tell lies.
What will I care, back in the past tense
with no ambition and not a gram of sense,
back where I was before a fear and a wish
joined to form a sort of finless fish
that learned to walk and have lips and smile?
I will go there to wait an endless while,
and neither think that wrong nor wish it right,
more than a rock in darkness hopes for light.
You will say my name, but less with years,
the children less than you and more than theirs.
It's mostly in our names, as they fray and thin,
blown on the breaths of aging friends and kin,
that in some tugging moments we may seem
to sleep on a little past the dream.
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