Classic Poem

10. TODAY

The wind is blowing;
scudding rags of cloud
hide the sky;
our child has gone to the army.
Today
this
trembling — what is it?
We come and go
and miss in passing, at the edge of simmering water.
While from the depths
a vortex rises,
those who must leave, depart
and even in the spaces in the streaming mass of soldiers
no one is left out.

*****

After all, the earth, too,
is but a hunk of stone,
speck in absolute space.
mote enveloped in a cloud
of light as from a chandelier.
A jewel wrapped in the skirts of final destruction.
Yet
today
is wearing the shoes of the wind,
cracking the whip
of the whistling wind's cyclone:
on this earth
I become
one drop of thick blood.