'To Live Again' by Mara Lemanis

'To Live Again' by Mara Lemanis   

 

To Live Again 

 

The wind sent my voice

to wail at the sun--

The sky is falling

palisades of rain—

What is wrong?

The sun rips sluices

through the pillared mist

strikes cataracts that

burn through clouds;

What is happening?

The world's heart of

iron pumps magma

to choke the

round earth's corners;

We are but dorsal life,

Our young are wrinkled

 in their bones

they've parched their

basketfuls of eggs,

Our old sit by campfires

dimmed to embers,

The animals we dote on

The animals we feed on

drop their heads away

out of our hands

and sniff the ground,

pale grass seed soaked in oil,

they lap the sludge that

shrivels their bowels;

Birds wing from soot to

altitudes of char—

What is planned?

the wind wails through my voice;

How has it come to pass

that the earth flesh of 

the world is sapped

that the prophecies

each day are false

and the night brings demons,

that our visions blind us

and only the dying

pines dream dreams—

Something looms glistening

 above scorched plains;

a thing vaster than our sphere

mass big as Neptune

grazes our crust to

 rain the large rain

down again;

Pray let it be a hallowed rock

that slakes the earth's remains,

that wakes dry bones to live again.

                                     

--Mara Lemanis

 

  

Image 1: Clyfford Still's painting "Red Field", image 2: painting by Helen Frankenthaler.