What I'm Reading #30

This is my only planned new purchase of poetry for summer and I'm nursing it slowly. The poems reveal a keen spirit with a desire to discover the meaning in a moment. Ideas blossom and form carefully crafted austere bouquets.

Here's one that I've been mulling over for days, getting to know more fully.





Ghazal

You sing, bird-small, from the reeds at night.
In search, I wet my sleeves at night.

A Cooper's hawk. A red-tailed fox.
One trots, one screams--through my dreams at night.

All we have lost is brightly lost.
What flames copper green? Our grief at night.

Tongue-dumb, I was born more rack than not;
the stars like sores I can see at night.

Gin-drunk, god-sick, and opossum-quiet,
if Daniel must go, he'll leave at night.

~ Daniel Johnson, 1973 -

To recite this poem is nearly to sing, so lyrical is the cadence of the words.