What I Want
The copper lake, blue-green,
where the cinnamon bear lopes up the scree
stopping once to look back before its final bound
into the trees. I want the trees and what they say
back to wind, to rain and thunder. I want thunder
and lightning’s crooked light. And I want the morning,
sloe-eyed, and night stuffed back inside its purse.
I want the boat, the storm and the man in the stern
who calms it; the water before it turns to wine.
I want the late-day light, the way it streams
across the bridge suspended over the narrows
and the look of the sun-struck woman crossing over.
I want her brown eyes looking into her lover’s blue.
I want to say to Galway Kinnell what is is not enough
when what is is war or famine, the bruised child
or the wife in pajamas, after breakfast, who tells
her husband of more than twenty years:
his love
is not
enough.
Comments