​The Poet Flies Away


I've always wanted to
write crooked lines, he said,

and straight away they fly
off like wounded birds.

Some mornings he holds his
breath, waiting for something

to come. Something always
comes. Wind in the rafters

might be a poem. Light
on the grass like fire.

The sky so blue, blue, blue.
He wants to fly away

and sometimes, yes, he does.





The Poet's Silence


These are my broken
words, no matter whose

mouth they're in, he says,
no matter what lies

they tell. And he means
it, or thinks he does.

Sometimes he confuses
what he hears for what

he says. That's one way
to get to mystery.

The other is to say
nothing, and sometimes

that's how he gets there,
silence the kind of

wisdom we need when
all else fails us.



The Poet Faces Truth

​
Some mornings he wonders which
face to put on when he rises.
Sometimes the sky is a mirror.

What you see of him is what
you expect to see. Or so
we think. He is all those things

and none of them. That's the thing
about truth: it has many
faces. By afternoon you'll hear

a different story. By evening
the moon comes out, and the stars.
We get lost in remembering.