Poems

Behind the Mass of Green

When the message came with a smile
that summer was coming,
men, sloshing their way
through puddles of muddy water,
carried on oblivious.
But the roses felt the warm kiss
of summer on their necks.
 
Chicks roared inside cracking shells,
plums blushed with excitement.
My mother lugged our winter clothes
out of the chest of drawers
and spread them in the sun.
I pulled my heart out of my breast,
and laid it in the sun as well,
my heart, smelling of frost, and musty winter.
 
Listen, from now on, my heart is married to the sun.
While you draw the curtains over it all,
and fall into mid-morning naps,
I make love with the sun.
I'm certain this love is my virtue but maybe it's the sun's sin -
because someone hurt me, recently,
someone with a ridiculous laugh,
which broke into the quiet night,
got my name so drunk even street girls shouted it.
Look.  There is someone behind this mass of green.
Someone whose eyes, right from the beginning of creation
until this moment, saved faith and love.
Someone whose breath is the astonishment of Jesus,
someone whose touch is a loan from Moses,
someone whose voice veils the song of eclipses,
someone who is seated in the palm of knowledge
and in whose hands the half-apple
waits for sweet lips, someone
who has blessed horizons with dust from his feet.
Yes, behind this mass of green there is someone,
and for him I have come back to life.