APPLE
On the days the winds blow ill I enter them,
and on the days they lift the world,
too –
the threshold, the naked green,
the ground and its seam,
the breath that passes in between,
across the bridge, then no bridge, just
crossing,
through the night, then day without
morning,
the harvest taken though never sown,
a docked ship, never on the
horizon,
fruits in the market, no sign of the
merchant –
the commerce of the breath.
On the days the rains flood the streams I swim,
and on the days they bless the
fields, too –
to tread the cloying blue,
my thin body washed anew,
a held breath before bursting
through,
to float in between, in a head of
wind
with feet soaked cold, shoulders at
the waterline,
a star suspended in a lake of
night,
words floating on the water clock’s
surface,
a barrel of rain, the pull of the
drain –
the commencement of water.
On the days the earth cracks in the field I weed,
and on the fertile days, too –
the hand on the shovel knows little
of the hole,
to walk at night through the
just-plowed field,
following furrows, feeling for stones,
to stumble, then fall, but not
shout back –
a line of millions unlit in the
quiet,
a well-trod trail, a late spring
snow,
a wool-muffled cough on the edge
of the field,
bareroots in the barrow, the maiden trees,
a grunt and thump but no warning
called –
the commentary of the soil.
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THE BOOK OF TREES by
Sean M. Conrey
* ISBN-13:
978-0-9986404-3-3
* ISBN 10: 0-9986404-3
Saint Julian
Press, Inc. * 2053 Cortlandt, Suite 200 * Houston, TX 77008 * Ron
Starbuck ~ Publisher-CEO
Phone: 281-734-8721 * Email: ronstarbuck@saintjulianpress.com * www.saintjulianpress.com