Exploring a Flower

…(T)he beginning of poetry in English occurred when an illiterate farmhand
was aroused from sleep by an angel
who then prodded him to versify the Book of Genesis.
Robert B. Shaw, “The Muse at Loose Ends”

I who cannot write, write.
There are those who know miracles cannot be miracles.
Thin lipped, her eyes wide open, she stands to sleep
and I wonder if, when night lives, this is her time.
I know the Bible.
I have heard it often enough.
Yet word for word, verse for verse, I cannot read.
Read I must.
She holds the railing,
sways with the movement of this thing she rides,
lips so thin when hair drips before her ears,
they bleed into her face.
I need to meet her.
She can teach me all things.

Michael H. Brownstein

Archived 02/10/2010