Loonling

for Rachel Saunders

John Donlan

CBC Radio Brave New Waves turns crepitus to music
and closer home old bones go elemental
after long delicious complication.
Rain, hot tears, purge the poison

of unfeeling. Our griefs celebrate
life in brief, homecoming and leaving,
where every gain is loss and change is death.
Soon enough our instruments of joy

will swell at best only as far as pleasure
(as if that weren't enough),
as if a group of players lost their strength
and numbers till the music only played

in the mind, that silent violin
whose body is all air, all living woods,
all lakes unknowing what their darkness holds,
all children ill, all their parents awake.


July 3, 2002

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

John Donlan's works copyright © to the author.