Sharing the Mouth of the Wind AMONG FRIENDS AND CONSECRANTS

Harold Rhenisch
From:   Taking the Breath Away, 1998

Full moon last night.

The sky a wind looked at on edge.

Damsel flies sitting on the thistles
the field shimmering, blue,
then lifting off, scattered.

Words set out along a fence rail;
kid with a .22: the old need to extend the mind
into the territory of the body.

Without patience, without sorrow,
the edges are wearing off each molecule of water.

World like molten glass,
whole sky like a lung.

The moon dreams me.

The trees tip-toe around us, and flee:
ghosts of insatience.

We lie in the grass side by side,
cold, drenched with dew.

Words like the edge of a file
slid across a knuckle,

like the hundred knives of a saw blade
cutting through the jeans into the knee.

Patience an old myth
gathered from a distant tribe,
and celebrated in the biggest cities.

Rain.

Poem 1 | Poem 2 | Poem 3 | Poem 4 | Poem 5 | Poem 6

Harold Rhenisch's works copyright © to the author.