Fertile Ground: Selected Poetry Read

Ghosts
Maurya Simon

All day the day lilies stall in the shade;
at dusk, the moon prowls the dark providences.
We have reached the in-between hour-
our bodies flow through tight crevices;
our slender feet, clever in their lightness,
step through even granite dungeons as they
float us back into the empty world.

We join hands, knowing no other solace
than breath, no comfort other than flight.
Our mission is simply to fully remember
all the catechisms of our days and nights,
and to relive our errors, one by one.
Clouds in the desert, winds in the forest:
we starve, we how our green lamentations.

What inhabits us is a hidden loss, something
we cannot speak nor name- a sorrow so rich
and fine it makes our skin translucent.
Write our etching names in the blank pages
of your hearts, or press them gently there,
like the dried petals of passion flowers.
We hold you accountable for change.

for Alex Londres and Geoff Bowers, taken by AIDS