Summer Wind
The way the wind comes up before a rain
in any woods at all, you have a rain
before the rain. The way the wind
shivers the leaves and branches into sighs
and shaking like a woman wakened
from a dream of death, you have a storm
before the storm. The way the wind
paints the undersides of leaves
a silver gray, shaking down the weak-linked few,
you have a fall
before the fall. The way the wind
comes up, you have a rain before
a dream before a storm before the fall
to give you time to open all your mouths
and drink, like trees, whatever's good for you.
Hack
Spring is a shack with the s unhinged
by sun schemes. Spring is something to get
into so you can drive around the blooming park.
Spring is a hack, the merest bud of the hackles
that will be raised by summer's holy heat.
Spring is huckleberries that aren't finished yet.
It's the hitch of the slipping trousers
of a man the cityslickers would call a hick.
Spring is hillbilly's "Ah, what the hack,"
as he throws off the dead weight of Appalachian
winters, chokes his cold to an early grave,
gets in the car drives, lickspittle quick,
To meet the girl in the hack in the park
whose name, the girl's, is April May,
whose smile unshackles his locked heart,
loosens his tongue, puts him in happy hock.
Just for the heck of it, he cocks his head,
chews a couple a dozen peppermint chiclets,
prepares to kiss that April May to a swoon
like they do in the movies, shivering shucks.
Phillips Gallery
Morris Graves is gone,
has been removed from the darkened room
and packed away until a simpler time return
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