I'm sitting in the middle of the field,
dunned and flattened by winter just past,
in a rotting wicker chair with my head thrown back,
watching clouds and listening to crows,
feeling less alone in our cosmic aloneness
for the company of the afternoon — I needed this.
This morning I took my diamond to the pawn shop.
As the jeweler squinted on his eyepiece
I lifted the lid, and it knocked me back,
the flash in the stone, and I remembered
starlight in the cut, starlight in her eyes —
nothing settled, nothing forgotten, nothing gained.
Damn necessity, for showing me
I had failed to change, leaning on the heavy
beveled glass with all those future
promises illuminated under my elbows,
and woe for the silence of what's dead,
not silent in my head, not silent in my head.
