Candlelight
Crossing the porch in the hazy dusk
to worship the moon rising
like a
yellow filling-station sign
on the black horizon,
you feel the faint grit
of ants beneath your shoes,
but keep on
walking
because in this world
you have to decide what
you’re willing to kill.
Saving your marriage
might mean
dinner for two
by candlelight on steak
raised on pasture
chopped out of rain
forest
whose absence might mean
an atmospheric thinness
fifty years from now
above the vulnerable
head
of your bald grandson on vacation
as the cells of his scalp
sautéed by solar radiation
break down like
suspects
under questioning.
Still you slice
the sirloin into pieces
and feed each other
on
silver forks
under the approving gaze
of a waiter
whose purchased attention
and
French name
are a kind of candlelight themselves,
while in the background
the
fingertips of the pianist
float over the tusks
of the slaughtered elephant
without a care,
as if the elephant
had
granted its permission.
"Candlelight" by Tony Hoagland from Donkey
Gospel. © Graywolf Press, 1998
^,^
Mosquito Aid Ode
Here’s a toast I want to give
To a dear friend
Calamine lotion
For mosquito bites and hornet stings
Folks think you’re just the potion
Your fame has spread
Just like a rash
From here to the great land
Of Goshen
To poo-poo your
over-the counter
Power
Let no one take a
Notion
We swab you
On the part of us
That’s harmed by sting or bright sun
Then lay back and feel your chalky
pink
Commence the soothing
function
How could we make it through
The summer
Without your balm
that someone
Way back when thought up for us
The extremist
Of all itching unction
So lift those glasses, yes
Lift them high
To Calamine you deserve rank
So thronely
We would in fact quaff a pink
Drink to you
If you weren’t for
^,^
Collection of One
The red veined thing I hold as in my hand
Was hard to
collect
involving snags
and cuts and cracked bones,
seasons of taking
it for granted
It brittled, turned in color,
too soon to be approaching
nature’s compost
It may be dying, but I am only 80.
Now, I see this single one
in a proper perspective
as only one in
a billion
But it’s my
one in a billion
Standing out from all the others
I ponder it,
top and bottom
So radiant still,
beating all, beating
others in a fuzzy background
even at a pulse of only 2 pixtels
it’s clear enough for me
to win a contest if I could get to it
I do hold it
the nurses and doctors
listen for signs of life
It reminds me of a fallen leaf
So fragile
I’d press it, if I had a big enough book
of gentle poetry
Ye shall find it still
flexing in this manger
A small but once mighty engine.
A leaf, a fire, my heart.
[David Dix, 2005]
^,^
Mike ascending Utah mountain
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