Strangers - Richard Shelton

we find ourselves at the exact place

where the light becomes darkness

and turn our faces toward one another

realizing we could be lovers we could

be anything we could even be friends

we could carry our scars

like banners we could pray to each other

and answer each other’s prayers

                 

this is the earth we can touch it

the mountains expose their nipples

to the last rays of the sun

and day lingers on the undersides of leaves

with so much need on the horizon

surely there is a heart around here somewhere

but we are characters from a book who have

come here on vacation

to listen to the pulse of the sea

which makes an affirmation beyond despair

those who have heard it

do not recommend it to anybody

we have heard the hypnotized telephone

ring itself into a trance of silence we have

seen the poor pass by on borrowed legs

we have been enameled by the sun

and as we are slowly going under water

where all light

is the light of a green stone broken open

we keep our distance it is all we have

For the Dead - Adrienne Rich

I dreamed I called you on the telephone

to say: Be kinder to yourself

but you were sick and would not answer

The waste of my love goes on this way

trying to save you from yourself

I have always wondered about the leftover

energy, water rushing down a hill

long after the rains have stopped

or the fire you want to go to bed from

but cannot leave, burning-down but not burnt-down

the red coals more extreme, more curious

in their flashing and dying

than you wish they were

sitting there long after midnight