Helen’s Garden
There is no word
for this at all. It rises
with the thunder,
it rides on the lingering rain
in the wind, through the daffodils and iris
growing under your touch,
it comes in with the fragrance
of columbine and roses,
dripping with ginger,
to lie in the sun-bleached grass around my heart.
It fills the night.
It brushes
against the far edge of summer, where the weather
softens, and the red dust turns rich and fertile.
Apollo 11
The flag waves in no wind
over dead tides and ashen silence.
A space-suited man whose name
we’ve forgotten stands with the flag
beside him, faceless yet human and almost
saluting, and this is more than just
a snapshot, more than me or you
stiff and smiling at Plymouth Rock
or the Liberty Bell.
This is one
of the famous pictures, one that proved
something we almost remember, the one
we find as we search in our turned-out pockets
for heroes, for lightning, for echoes of trumpets
and the muffled drums that ended
the glory that might have been.
