PICKINGS

Poetry from NHI publications

TO WALK INTO DEEP WATER
To walk into deep cold water that mirrors entirely me with silver scales flooding the coral of my lungs — easily I would give into that loudness, bubbles of silence, each willingly in exchange for drowning To lie below earth as a relic or pebble held concrete-tight, hearing no newsreel screaming with passion, reading no typefaced monotonous black and white millions dying their share of the planet's decay, in my fossil nirvana not smelling the meat of the burning of men. Sunlight is held in soft green paws of the young chestnut leaves as they rest on their twigs like parachutes falling, blunt spires rising. Might not melting in the sky like spilled air be fine invisibility.
CAL CLOTHIER

TO WALK INTO DEEP WATER

To walk into deep cold water that
mirrors entirely me with silver scales
flooding the coral of my lungs —
easily I would give
into that loudness, bubbles of silence, each
willingly in exchange for drowning

To lie below earth as a relic or
pebble held concrete-tight, hearing
no newsreel screaming with passion,
reading no typefaced monotonous
black and white millions dying
their share of the planet's decay, in my
fossil nirvana not smelling
the meat of the burning of men.

Sunlight is held in soft
green paws of the young chestnut leaves as
they rest on their twigs
like parachutes falling,
blunt spires rising. Might not
melting in the sky like spilled air be
fine invisibility.

CAL CLOTHIER

from
New Hope International 1980/81

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