Sibylant
Knuckled-under, eye-sore, road-weary, the last
years distraught
like walking blank through our day, stripped.
Hush, sh – the fringe. All the grass has gone to tassel.
We are doffed,
dodder like the grass stalks’ seed-heavy heads.
I mowed a narrow swath to the gate for us,
but left the rest
to reach, to shift and be given as we wish to be.
I was careful of the fleabane tatterflowers
strewn in
that have always stood for us, even if we forget.
Their delicate bristle was accented in sunlight.
Since we are braided into rootmeshes, thickets,
and boreal,
since we are bladed like the grass is,
I listen for fraught accords between soil and stalks
and open passage.
May we be unwieldy, splayed, the sprawl,
and traced no more or less than this lank grass.
It can be for us –
seed flecks cling to our sleeves when we pass,
yes – revealed, presencing, and unspoiled.
Will you come?
You now a meadow tingling again with breeze.
Lawrence Wray’s poems can be found in Stone Poetry Quarterly, Vox Populi, Presence, Crab Orchard Review, St. Katherine Review, and Coal Hill Review, and in the anthology The Gulf Tower Forecasts Rain. Read more.