Wednesday, June 30, 2021

Listening for lost people


 Listening for lost people

Still looking for lost people - look unrelentingly.
'They died' is not an utterance in the syntax of life
where they belonged, no belong - reanimate them
not minding if the still living turn away, casually.
Winds ruck up its skin so the sea tilts from red-blue
to blue-red: into the puckering water go his ashes
who was steadier than these elements. Thickness
of some surviving thing that sits there, bland. Its
owner's gone nor does the idiot howl - while I'm
unquiet as a talkative ear. Spring heat, a cherry
tree's fresh bronze leaves fan out and gleam - to
converse with shades, yourself become a shadow.
The souls of the dead are the spirit of language:
you hear them alight inside that spoken thought.

 

Denise Riley

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