The Absent Poet

He is back – maybe – with his muse, my muse

but shut up and silent in his singing

No conversation, no exchange, his words flung at my sky

my words drop to the dust, unspoken

And I am wracked with my unknowing misunderstandings mystified

Why why why

And then the knell what have I done wrong?

But his song has nothing to do with me

On one side of the globe he shoots his arrows of beauty, targetless to my knowledge:

On the other side of the globe I catch up withered leaves and dried twigs:

It is nearly hot enough for the birds to fall out of the sky dead

(they do each year flying and drop as stone)

On that side mists and lichen and looming clouds and dripping branches and every level of angel fecundity, and their own brand of violence

Here mystic dervishes twisted mad by thirst and heat

And still I hear the whispers through cracks in space

and I whisper back

expecting emptiness

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