Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Brewing

Affection pulses in my stomach
like a drumbeat in the hollow of a drum.

You photographed his hands:
pale, freckled, vulnerable fish

reaching for a pot. Spruce tips
went from green to seaweed yellow;

yeast took a couple anxious breaths
and sank again to learn its breathing new.

Jealousy is for immortals,
or at least Asuras: not for

creatures of seventy seasons,
barely long enough

to imagine love, let alone
unfold its heavy banners

and rig them on the walls. No.
What I have done, awkward as it is

will have to stand: I have a dying
to work out, and children to soothe.

There is no record to set straight:
this fermentation

began long before
the continents came adrift.

8 comments:

rbarenblat said...

Oh! Oh, Dale, this is beautiful. There's restraint in the visual prosody here, and power. I love "You photographed his hands: / pale, freckled, vulnerable fish" and "yeast took a couple anxious breaths / and sank again to learn its breathing anew," and "barely long enough // to imagine love, let alone/ unfold its heavy banners" -- and the two final stanzas, oh my heart!

Dale said...

Thanks dear Rachel!

Lorianne said...

Oh, wow. I'm still trying to articulate something more profound than that, but in the meantime...wow.

Jean said...

(o)

Dale said...

Thanks Lorianne and Jean!

Lucy said...

What Jean said.

marly youmans said...

Full of interesting images and the right amount of reticence.

"For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass."

Kim Scanlon said...

This is especially beautiful, Dale. Kim