We are six days in and I have yet to post a poem for National Poetry Month, so let me take the time now to share two that I've been working on.
The first has perplexed me since the event it describes. It's been much longer, shorter, differently structured, roped into a tight set of five couplets, and now set free into a sort of prose poem. I'm still not sure where it'll go, but here:
Goose
Geese don’t just fall from flight to land dead in parking lots. In the midst of migration there is no explanation for this moment: graceless on the concrete before me, the whole body unmarred by bullets. The goose lies among the cars, a nuisance, a single wing spread north in defiance. No marks or blood. No explanation for this momentary loss of gravity and grace.
The second has been back-burnered for a year now. I'm not sure what I'll do with it in the future. It lacks a memorable voice, in some ways, and I'm struggling with that:
For David:
I cannot write you
but I will write this:
Last night when, after forty long daysof darkness,
we unleashed the Alleluiafrom its tomb,
(which I learned after your death
used to spend its Lenten journey
not in the ground but behind
The Book of Conchord in your office)
it drifted slowly skyward,
(the young man who assisted at your funeral
holds this knowledge like a jewel,
a secret moment shared just months
before you died)
everything was heavier last night
and we missed the sight of yourocking on your toes
lifting us all in the updraftsof your faith.
