Pairings (a poem)

             

The Quaker graveyard at Lowell’s Nantucket,

            Longfellow’s Newport Jewish cemetery,

            Larkin’s churchyard where the dead lay round,

            The slaves’ plot over at West Main and High.

            Lincoln’s dedicated, consecrated, hallowed ground

            At Gettysburg; and new ash this spring above Big Run.

            Pairings: stars and fireflies,

            Thoreau’s fingers and the veins in leaves,

            Men forked, bare, and unaccommodated -

            Corrupted gods: upward angel, downward dog,

            A part fresh muck and part geometry.

           

            That dull word meaning means which of

            These lines from thing to thing can hold

            If spoken, hinted, or quick-pocketed.

            No; no private language, but illicit

            Meaning overgrows the earth,

And Durham too: this

            Filthy treasure trove.

            The most vital I have ever been

            Was shimmering in these, my spider-threads,

            And fingers tracing shining script like 

Gestures in a luminescent bay;

Or stripped to skin, the air

That rests on me not even wind.