Cold
and summer rains
Sound
exists only as its going out of existence
I hear it go away
Cars on the road, deterioration of a wave
Rushing to write it down
I cant say it so youll remember
Rushing to spell it out
Sweep
Sweep
Pine
needles
Sweep
Away
I
never heard the spring or winter command
shedding leaf clutter
but under this heap a better design
a brick formalism, a mosaic
So
when I read what I write out loud
Even I will know the evaporation of silence
from words I couldnt figure out
even if I planned to figure them out
The silk hydrangea
The wild yellow-petalled bell
tilt against the peeling house
in a dash of sun through a muffle of fog cloud
I
remember what I saw before I heard it fall
Michael
Rothenberg is editor of Big Bridge, www.bigbridge.org, and co-editor
of JACK Magazine, www.jackmagazine.com and most recently editor
of Overtime, Selected Poems by Philip Whalen (Penguin Putnam,
Inc.). He has published several books of poems including Favorite
Songs, Nightmare of the Violins, and What The Fish Saw. The
Paris Journals is out now from Fish Drum, Inc. http://www.fishdrum.com/news.html.
He is also the author of the novel Punk Rockwell (Tropical Press).
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