Poem of the Week

I live in a room named East

on the map of the West   at the edge

near the door cedars and alders

mix and tower,

full of ravens   first thing each morning,

whose song is

              a sharpness

we quarrelled so

                  over the genius

of the heart

              whose voice is capable

they come on horseback

in the middle of the night,

two of them,   with a horse for me,

and we ride,   bareback

clinging to the white manes,

at the edge of the sea-splash,

burst open,

              to divine

the hidden and forgotten source,

who is transparent

where the moon drops out of the fog

to bathe,

but not to us

the retied heart

              where the wind glitters

              for Ellen Tallman