A poem from yesterday

The Fragrance Of What Lasts

An airplane drones its way above us
toward a nearby landing.
The lamp in my study yellows its circle
and leaves the walls dim with books.
We are told it is a time to bomb a land
because of some madman. Kill
or be killed. Maybe tomorrow snow
will dust the ground again,
maybe tomorrow cardinals will begin
to sing as if spring might come.

Today you decided to renounce wine,
so I drink a glass alone
because I must accept its relief,
its brief memory of sunny slopes,
of slow and durable fermentation.

No perfection here. The pilot accepts
his runway and lands. The moon
keeps showing its phases to anyone
who will watch the sky. Year after year
I remember best the sanctuaries -
a bend in the road when light struck leaves,
a sundial I read among box hedges.

Here nothing is larger than the rasp of cicadas
near a home ruled by love, nothing endures
better than flavors of new-mown grass and lilacs
filling the air we breathe before sleep.
by T. Alan Broughton (1999)

This poem was first published in a literary journal that I'd brought back from Michigan. Yesterday morning, I chanced upon the journal and took it with me for my train ride to work. It is a small work - a stringing of simple words into lyrical sentences - but it is no small beauty. The poem carried me through yesterday, and I wanted to begin today with the same words.

Posted by Monoceros at April 10, 2003 12:30 PM