Another Sleepless Night among the Ruins
by Liz Rosenberg
1 This spring-like February evening,
2 pink sky shading down to lead,
3 I stand under clear white butterflies---
4 a flock of wings hung folded from the sleeping tree.
5 When one cloud moves they turn to stars of ice.
6 Ah frozen ringing street, stricken beneath my boots!
7 The Church of the Slow Children
8 has no other name, only the glowing shield
9 out on the road
10 though I circle around the gray stone
11 dark within its spider sprawl,
12 one bell and cross flung
13 into the highest air: steel spray
14 of its peculiar blossoming.
15 At daylight's edge
16 before I climb the flights
17 to my third floor roof of rooms
18 I stand like this sometimes and breathe
19 and count the endless movement of my breastbone heaving
20 while dawn glitters in like a red tide and nothing
21 else is there....
22 From her corner of the sky
23 my steady neighbor Venus
24 points me up till I can see
25 the path of planets burn and gleam and widen out
26 ---so like my own slow way past grief.
[from The Fire Music (1986): University of Pittsburgh Press]
Copyright © 1986, Liz Rosenberg.
Reproduced for personal use only: do not circulate.