To M.

Gabriella Garofalo

Ah, wilderness,

Where has the white gone,

The hour harder than leaves as she gathers

A shady truth just to sow lovers

And the coarse limbs they crave,

That, or water, wind, wombs heading

For blind blue alleys as the wind climbs too high

To a sky the goddess of the crops hustles,

Her biting wrath mad at births, and daffs-

‘Cause you live too far them,

Fathers can’t dream of you,

Distance can’t heal loss, or dissent,

Nor can your eyes shatter twilight,

Or sky, your war trench-

Alright then, cut it out, look,

The air is clean, almost pure,

No limbs dirty you,water,

Grass, don’t look green-eyed of bushes,

Just gather the seeds that cry for an early season light,

And you, soul, go find your shades,

Stop acting the shrinking guest of words,

Stop mooning about,

Like a waste land in those first days,

No living grass –

For heaven, and hell will bring dainties and wine

To a date in my soul, by the restless blue of April,

When life thrusts other flowers,

When adverse to setting roots ablaze

Prophets disappear among pencils, and books,

Just a few marks in sand, and water,

If at long last clouds force you to fight

On equal terms against dread, or rejection,

That first look to a never-outlined life.