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| Common milkweed |
When too happy to write
poetry, which is expected to hold an ache,
all I have to do is wait for the return of normalcy.
A text from a close friend will do it,
asking politely for more sacred space.
It's all about the heart, you see.
Most everything we get twisted.
A meeting with an ex will do it,
accepting the return of your daughter's journals—
the things of the dead have their own weight.
Opening one at random will do it.
Reading "I'm so very lonely" will do it.
So, now I am ready to write,
to spin off in my own separate galaxy
as I head for the cabin in the woods,
the long, pained lines unfurling before me like gossamer—
trauma, loss, survival, emptiness— on a hot breeze.
Time to get to work,
Until I am stopped halfway through the field
by common milkweed in bloom,
the marvel of its mauve geometry, its sweet traps,
and if I stay long enough, look close enough,
I'll lose that ache to the joys of the natural world,
the horses of poetry galloping riderless into the trees,
trailing those sad lines behind them like dropped reins.
