The Focus of my Little Prayers

I started early, took my dog
And visited the sea of poems
There in the basement of dreams
I found the lilacs staring back at me
I was impressed by the melody

How the sea withdrew in felicity
There was no turning back, it was set
The moon waltzed above my head

And I like mortals swooned
On the page of my youth
Where slow-motion still loved
The quietness distilled
From silence of the dove

And the summer made me beautiful
Inside, to protect me from the dying
Change was enhanced in song

Through sequestered scattered afternoons
And I was as much, my own sun
As the light escapes across the white
Across the wet throngs of spring
To be a poet of all the things we might become

Enlarging loneliness, with an inner smile
Finding joy in emptiness, that’s what
I know best, and it’s how I’ve survived

These books of bronze and blaze
And haloes of another time
I’ve felt the wizard suns
From distant eyes and praised
It’s all I have to bring today

All I am is me, and it’s a meadow wide
And it’s a storm’s encircling pride
And in my heart there is no setting or rising
There just lives a poem, that cannot die.