of pastoral, bucolic.
Not quite a green thought—
40% chance turned
downpour—but greening,
a farmable (read firm,
read pharmaceutic) mutation:
sheep beget a shepherd,
beget the shepherdess beget
the sheepfold beget
begetting and bleating need
for the arable, the potable,
the strip mall, the big
box and a blockbuster ethos.
From the flood
of plastic entertainments,
a short leap to the purple pill.
The hole in the forest
they dug and stuck
our house in after they cut
the trees out fills
with the neighbors’ runoff;
sewerworks are a miracle,
working or not.
You emerge from
the mudroom, the laundry
done and lovely,
tell me the drain is clogged
but surely know better
than I—desuetude
where duende
is needed—what Hölderlin
meant when he said
a life, if poetic, measures
and dwells.
Tuesday, plying my
elevation trade I told them:
at the end, never locate
your epiphany in—
or else approach only
rarely and with care
(if locate one you must)—
water, light,
fire, moon and stars,
especially wings,
hands. They added rain.