Irrigated Land

 

I tried for a

long time

not to

write.

 

Looked plainly at new

places, traveled without

paper, bought magazines at

airports, took

jobs that paid, dug into

the endless

domestic

day.

 

Poetry is patient. It

forgives the squander

of silent afternoons,

allows books to lie

flat or stand

straight.

 

It accepts still hands as

a passing threat and waits

its turn like an empty

drawer in an ordered

desk.

 

I must work hard. Record

these ways of saying that sound

like ways of speaking

but are also ways of

meaning.

 

Alight. Offer

the close-fitting word

to that one other

who from a plane seeks out

the unsettling sight

of green and brown

circular swathes

of irrigated

land.

 

Written April 2013

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