I Will Lie Down

Now that my ladder's gone,
I must lie down where all the ladders start
In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.

W.B. Yeats “The Circus Animal’s Desertion”

in a restless dream    I cross a beach        of burning sand
barefoot       going nowhere            trying to run                     

to keep from singeing       the soles of my feet
I wait              for the hand of god             or some damned angel

who never appears     to pluck me from this beach
already so doomed                that not even sleep

will save me              for a few hours         I’m weary      
perpetually stuck                  in this endless squirrel cage          

I look for the place               where the ladders start
with any luck I’ll find it                     and sit there awhile            

with nothing to prove         and nowhere to go
and someone I love

 

Wild Places

you and I know        
how to be silent

together    alone
to watch the new
                       
fledgling falcons
being taught their lessons
           
in the backyard       
we hold still
           
while they tumble
through the oak and cherry

camouflage themselves     
in the blue spruce
           
learn to signal to each other         
that it’s time

to dart into the sky 
and leave us for wild places