Rented Rooms / The Obligatory Spring Poem
Who lived here before I don't know,Other than her name was Ruby.
She left nothing of herself behind
But mail with no forwarding address
And these empty rooms that are home
Now to my books and music and art,
But not to me . . . when I leave neither
Ruby nor I will have ever been here.
What I will leave of me is outside
These walls: a few words that rose
In sparrows' throats and soared for
One telling moment above the pines,
Catching in the oaks blazing up
Into Spring, whole stanzas of colors
Saying love and leaving in a language
Who comes after me will not know:
The feathery vowels of bird songs,
The soft sibilance of leaves,
The consonant defining light.
Things that stay and belong.
Poetry by countryfog
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Written on 2011-04-02 at 01:37
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