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M. Travis Lane
From:   Reckonings, poems 1978-1985. Goose Lane, 1988.

Why should the wing marks on the snow
speak more of life
                     (they speak of death)
than the gray path trundled bank to bank?

Getting and spending,
the waste is ours.
The owl's beak of indifference
upgathers us.

Our earnest, burrowing hours will leave
a nest of nits and gnawings so petit
one thaw will close it like a pore.

The pierced heart in its first
and last expression dropped
one tiny ruby, as if breath
were jewel only when it dies.

Who speaks for life?
The owl's eyes, too,
were "bright with it."

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