Poetry
(William Stafford)
Its door opens near. It’s a shrine
by the road, it’s a flower
in the parking lot of The Pentagon, it says, “Look around,
listen. Feel the air.”
It interrupts international telephone lines with a tune.
When traffic lines jam, it gets out
and dances on the bridge. If great people get distracted by fame
they forget
this essential kind of breathing
and they die inside their gold shell.
When caravans cross deserts
it is the secret treasure hidden under the jewels.
Sometimes commanders take us over, and they
try to impose their whole universe,
how to succeed by daily calculation:
I can’t eat that bread.
___
It holds you on their shoulders
You make games so it can't see
We stay in place seriously safe on level ground, not expecting soil to become unstable as tho some out of the picture
Frame may swoop in, we stay in place
It's no longer our place
No more a game
Even commanders rely on maps
Even bakers rely on wheat
Even shoulders weary without spine
Just as books balancing their folio
Our earth strata rip rap holding man and mountain sand grains in time
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