Why always this effort and effect? Why this continual ebbing, After desire's brightened onrush, This retreating patter and perpetual mumble 5 Of the ocean skidding back to the stones? Somehow, our minds stand Near our bodies, near the ocean. Why just one dew-diamond in a field of blues? Why this misery of gestures 10 Lapsing solicitously From each bright, particular wave? This failure of metal sprays and squirts Firing between jacks and queens, japes and jonquils, The unplayed banjo and the imagined hand 15 Strumming a dusty fistful of strings So anxious, at evening, To be touched, to be merely touched Which way and every way in the clanging wind.
From the collection "Hymns"
Written by Gregg Glory [Gregg G. Brown]
More information available on gregglory.com.