contemplations 7&8: your wholehearted servant

Pick the object of your devotion—stomach,
brain—and call it your garden, say it is
for the sake of others; that the fluttering
leaves are your heart; that those twist-reach-
scramble vines growing heavy on themselves
(leaning, leaning) will someday feed thousands.

*

Life, I am your wholehearted servant. Or—
as much of a heart as I have left, is yours devoted
to shutting out tight these misgivings, which lean
toward a belief that my heart is, in fact,
a dropped glass screen. One minute safe
in your hand, the next face-down on pavement.
You know that sound: sudden, small, stifled apology
for becoming useless. How then the fragments
ingrain themselves, how eyes grow used
to a fractured view.

Inspired by Hafiz, “Pray to Your Hand,” translated by Daniel Ladinsky

The Poet’s Complaint

Once it is written, the magic is gone.
Galaxied dreams become rocks after all;
sky-blazing-brilliant star turns into stone
once it is written. (The magic is gone,
memory sunk. These words, cold and alone,
conjuring mere disillusionment, pall.)
Once it is written, the magic is gone—
galaxied dreams become rocks after all.

 

Playing around with the triolet for Yeah Write’s September poetry slam.