Before words blacken page,
this could be about a wish:
Grant us the calm of the curled dog,
for forgiveness:
Folks fret too much,
Or a hopscotch game:
Chalked on cracked Harlem sidewalk
that is really metaphor
for aspects, random
and planned, of a hard life—
Hop, twist, land, count, lose
but call it win,
Or sound:
An ax on oak,
a bleating sheep drifting
to a long-ago castle keep window
No more than slotted gap
in sturdy stone wall.
Here on blackened page
words may swerve
down to water’s salty edge:
Renewal,
into fields of yellow flowers:
the mind’s eye,
in front of headlamps
of an oncoming truck:
Death,
up to scads
of scudding stratocumulus:
Prayer, dream,
Risk,
At any time.
Now it ends
at our say so.
