Revitalizing
what morning has not known the mountain it must cross
its snowcap and melt around a single spring flower
the blue slate sky fills with zeppelins of clouds
every day a new restoration
a new promise
generations never quite the same twice
this is nothing we can hold still
mornings come
regardless of season
politics
or weather’s meanness
mornings go
like the passage of laughter or sadness
the sky and land are sewn together
parting like lips
when light is an aura
closing when sighing with nightfall
a story settles down for the night
curls its magnificent differences
trying not to wonder
Attachment
Light tries to penetrate the cataracts of clouds.
Stars are rising, making bold statements.
Flowers turn achingly towards scarps of light.
Season keep grinding forward,
following their necessary urges.
I want to be motionless in this light.
I want it to enter me, purposely,
hurrying to emerge inside me.
I am tiling the fields
while my wife is tossing seed
into the open ground, like kisses.
Nothing else in life is assured.
Just this,
just this attempt to work together
to bring about change.
Into this light, into the decision
to become more than seed,
into the underground, into the love
we cannot ignore, we watch to see
what will happen next.
Martin Willitts, Jr. has 24 chapbooks including The Wire Fence Holding Back the World (Flowstone Press, 2017), the winner of the Turtle Island Quarterly Editor’s Choice Award. He also has 11 full-length collections including The Uncertain Lover (Dos Madres Press, 2018) and Coming Home Celebration (FutureCycle Press, 2019).