True North
Richard Renelique
I saw you with wings stretched, emerging from a suburban cocoon
with pride in your breath. I recall the times when we were closer than the spaces between atoms
closer
I saw you with wings stretched, emerging from a suburban cocoon
with pride in your breath. I recall the times when we were closer than the spaces between atoms
closer
Fall into autumn,
Descend with English oak leaves as they bow to conifer neighbours,
Tangle yourself in the knotted hazel hanging on to avoid its premature shed.
Dance with the spinning
She feels the shape of another animal
three trees ahead & raises her left front paw.
Dew trembles on each blade of grass
as a snake uncoils among the leaves.<br
Your friend is one who answers to your needs:
the field you sow with love, and reap with thanks;
you seek him for your peace, to hear his heart;
and
A sentence with “dappled shadow” in it.
Something not sayable
spurting from the morning silence,
secret as a thrush.
The other man, the officer, who brought onions
and wine and sacks
When I ran, it rained. Late in the afternoon—
midsummer, upstate New York, mornings I wrote,
read Polish history, and there was a woman
whom I thought about; outside the
O children, run, the Cunjah Man,
Him mouth as big as frying-pan,
Him ears am small, him eyes am red,
Him have no tooth in him old head,
Him have
Poor harlot, Mary Magdalene,
Into the feast with trembling crept,
Past frowns that stabbed her with their hate
And falling at His feet she wept.
Self-righteous Simon spurned her there<br
And why should I be sad?
And why should you be glad?
To-morrow will come
With the sunrise gun,
When I may be glad
While you may be sad —<br
Your bliss is not my bliss
and yet perhaps
if I tell you my bliss
there may be a place
where we can meet
beyond words
My father
used to meet
I see thy smile; at times, May’s warm, young sun,
At times, December’s cold and threat’ning sky;
Thy woman’s hand aplucking at thy sword,
The lightning lurking in thy deep-set
The barbed-wire fences rust
As their cedar uprights blacken
After a night of rain.
Some early, innocent lust
Gets me outdoors to smell
The teasle, the pelted bracken,
The cold,