Imagining Talent Oregon Now
A poem…
And your village
shingles untethered
flown to dust sifting
the ruin of cities.
Sleep pleasures skin sky
your last memories
beyond the photos in your car.
Damp jade grass first
crimson then
crisped
then nothing.
Gone bedrooms
kitchen tables
the vase of flowers among
deserts of bedframes and
remember white cotton sheets
and damp bath towels
on the floor?
Streets to ash
pitting your eyes
dust of your abstinent
mouth speaks for
itself no notion
left of your own
open throat
silent in its instant
of closing.
How will you
unplanted
not sleep
not laugh
not breathe the now hours
and tomorrow?
Staggering ghosts
fall toward stars swept away
blinking brilliantly out
diamonds red gray black.
Spirit lifts endlessly
the horizon becomes a distant
closeness
and stinging salted
cheeks seep to douse
lips like bone again.
The petition of thousands
arise
help hope struggle…
dream the bees stir again
the seeds awaken.
Help
us today
pray strength
tomorrow comes
rain
and more
strength.
This is my most recent poem I wrote because I couldn’t sleep wondering what people are doing today, several months after these fires. My heart was broken and I didn’t know what else to do…
