Saturday, June 1, 2013

A Poem for June


This Particular Heaven 

In this particular heaven,
there are no numbers
to count the days
and no day’s end, just dusk,
when mothers call names
and fireflies lead the charge home.

In this particular heaven
There are bins of root vegetables,
of cinnamon sticks. There is strolling
along a boardwalk and then, sitting
with croissants and coffee
in a yellow café in southern France.

Right now, in this particular heaven,
we tremble at the thought of death
because it comes in all disguises:
a train, a clearing of leaves,
old age, a mysterious disease.
You are here, then, gone.

In this particular heaven,
there is no dark or drink
that can drown these sorrows.
In fact, there is no sorrow.
Only a forgetting of what is;
the loss of innocence.

At last, in this frail, final heaven,
there is sky-blue lake and lake-blue sky.
And later, when the moon rises
russet on the horizon, it bobs
like a glad party boat,
calling us to come aboard.

Lisa Vihos