Leave-taking

Soon doors close, windows slam shut, sounds go out
to where grass ends, feet follow, eyes open,
who said such words falls on both knees
and can’t rise, his feet won’t hold him.
Planet tilting, sky falling, cracks underneath rise
swallowing what’s there. It’s time to read the book
whose page you marked, then put away till now–
a heavy volume fanatics abide
and say they’ve read, their minds wholly other
from yours, their lives tipped with a poisoned point:
your father dies, your mother whores, all trace
of you and your family sifted through ashes.

As for now, we look and listen and speak
worn words. The Cyclops in the living room
holds us in thrall. How do men of feeling,
women of intellect, their genesis children
know when revelations show them the way,
each time sudden veer, the swerve, the slow rise
before falling into the duplicate
of our fears and hopes, what the traveler
home must do to escape the cave, all there
in the narrative of the closed circle
–see the islands, they are many, blood is ocean
and two legs go farther than four, do not stay, go:

(6, 22 June 2012)

copyright 2012 by Floyce Alexander