Particles: New and Selected Poems. Dan Gerber

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      If you can’t love ashes

      what is the sense of burning wood

      Too much wine is a pleasure and a pain

      If we were together too long

      we would fight

      A little sadness like salt

      enhances the flavor

      11

      I have been sick and have lost my voice

      We haven’t talked for weeks

      Tonight you called

      and for the first time spoken

      you said “I love you”

      After all these years these words between friends

      I couldn’t speak

      but you heard me

      13

      Each moment we recognize is gone

      and so too the days

      we try to pin down with words

      which are only moments given sound

      I live

      trying to catch moonlight with the paper

      on which I send you this night

      14

      Looking back

      at my footprints in the snow

      I wonder

      Who is this me

      who longs to answer this question

      this me

      who walked here alone

      impudent authority

      so far from home

      15

      Though tonight we are happy

      we will come to grief

      What of it

      If we look for something endless

      our lives will be endless looking

      Why not settle for this

      new wood on the fire

      the moon in love

      with the new-fallen snow

      19

      The crescent moon appears in the west

      Taking leave, we first see it

      though it’s been with us all day

      like the sound of a bell

      before it’s struck

      or the sound of your voice

      when I’m far away

      20

      Even with a continent between us

      we hear the same music

      rare, even among those who never part

      If you die before me

      I’ll trace these letters with my finger

      in the air

      so the birds can fly through them

      and translate this song

      29

      Each day we are faced with having done nothing

      no matter what we do

      Our lives like the wake of a boat

      close behind us

      Better not to look from too far away

      Only at getting these words down now

      then to split wood then to eat lunch

      then mail this letter

      then to look again at the void

      30

      I begin this letter

      writing the date at the top of the page

      like an incantation

      for some unnamed thing to take life

      Why call it April

      when a sudden snow stills the peepers

      and I turn from windows where

      frost blares against the new green rye

      or the sixth day

      breaking always into convenient shares

      and a year to count our progress

      34

      I thought of you

      as I dropped this Grey Wulff at the base of a stump

      I watched the minute dapple of water around it

      I waited for some nameless creature to rise

      While in the trees above, two herons were resting

      a kingfisher rattled and skimmed the surface

      and a turtle slid off a log

      like the author of a dream

      slipping into the day

      35

      There are nights

      I don’t know what to do

      with my arms

      nights it would be a pleasure

      to take them off

      to stack them by the bed

      and swim like a dolphin

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