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.

 

 

 

 

SEAN M. CONREY ~ POET’S PAGE

 

 

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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