underground – Page 3 – Underground Turtles

What Time Is It?

What Time is It?

Is it in the rooster’s eyes?
Is it in the dog’s eyes?
Is it in the blowfly’s eyes?

The owl spreads her wings. Is it in her wings?
The hawk dives toward her prey.
Is it in her gaze, her talons?

The worm turns. The vulture tarries.
The dove cocks her head wary.
Sunset holds the key to sunrise.

Let us be all right with that.
Skeletons are out of closets
and walking around with skin.

Where to begin and where to end?
Let us suppose they are partly the same:
In the cradle’s shadow there it is,
the grave,

in the shadow of the manger there they are:
the cross,
the tomb:

Life.

And What of Poetry?

And what of poetry?
Can it be said, should it be said —
it is nearly a lost art?

You have to keep it up
purpose-obsessed not quite.
You have to endure

meaning-steered, goal galvanized?
again
perhaps not quite; yet that voice chides.

Sometimes it is but a murmur
much like rain
as it strikes and joins a puddle or that tinkle over stone, down,
down,

and against all odds –
like a mother salmon
who must resist the flow – you must give birth –