Classic Poem

They're beguiling as Asian dragonflies,
the leaping springbock with its lyre horns,
or the cello virtuoso who can coax
from one elbow and four tight strings such an ocean
of low notes we feel a sudden happy need
for tears. And they're easy to spot—
for the good carry themselves with easy

radiance. They are spontaneous
and simple as springs, bright water
that souses the sullen rocks, and they wear
a puzzling air of calm confidence—not cocky
or brazen—but assured like a tree the sun
confides with all summer long or a child
who has always worn the soft vestments

and eaten the golden bread of love.
But how they unnerve us whose boldness
is a bristling, through whom like a coal seam
a vein of darkness runs, a snake that zips
across meadows and slowly, publicly
gags down the twitching mouse.
And the sun burns through a nuisance of clouds.











From Poetry Magazine, Vol. 187, no. 2 November 2005. Used with permission.