HERBERT WOODWARD MARTIN

The Innisfree Poetry Journal

www.innisfreepoetry.org

by Herbert Woodward Martin

The Physics of Looking  

I saw the sunlight renew itself in

 the flowers that stretch forth and

 speak to those who pass by the thin

 horizon that languishes far away.

  The horizon is a woman, a fertile bird,

 dazzling in flight and breaking into song.

 It is the night that always flees before the light.

 I have learned to sleep among the anguish of weeds.

  The wind worries my soul;

 the sun dries my excess blood;

 my skin excommunicates pain;

 my skeleton is a treasury of longing.

  I am a beggar for all creatures;

 my brain is the residue of nerves

 and electric pulses of thought.

 I enrich a few celebratory words. 

 The sun rests on the dark tree branches 

My heart seeks the answers to the physics of love

 I am enthralled, like everyone, by the soul of light;

 The rough road causes my feet to tremble. 

 I argue with my pain;

 I sculpt all my thoughts;

 I take rest from the city landscape;

 I need you to love and exult me.

  I have a cemetery of friends 

Who are asleep, who are dead.

 Death is what they most feared; 

Nature is what feeds the land.  

The rivers are the great sculptor 

Water is wet air and light; 

Shapes stretch themselves into shadows, 

What I love most is the sleep of rest.

  I am too old to sing anymore.

 I am a miracle of light.

 I am the single shadow that widens .

I am a sound moving in empty space  

I love the skin that covers a woman’s thighs.

 I love the golden hair that extends from corn .

Its silk is like wave upon wave of wind:

 Softness, softness, softness, softness, 

 My hands are filled with the touch of wind 

My hands long to embrace the sunlight 

All of my thoughts are acquainted with life

 And is aware of only the body breathing.

  I am wrapped in the skin of love.

 I am aware of words and thoughts;

 I am aware of my neighbor’s breathing. 

Clouds are nature’s excellent fortune.  

The floors of heaven are ceramic blue 

The clouds are the gods breathing.

 Something, I know not what, sustains me 

The road I walk is long and lovely.

  Among the trees are seeds of inhibition falling

 Among the long wheels of grass tumbling towards 

The edges of the earth where the ancients fell. 

We went into our houses to save ourselves.

  Do you hear the footsteps of the wind?

 Are you familiar with the dance of sunlight?

 Do you see my image among the shadows?

 Who among us is capable of dance and song? 

 My body no longer celebrates its muscles. 

Everything loses its shape and form.

 All we dare do is celebrate breath and faults 

And learn letter by letter the definition of words  

we call the shadows of infusion: night

 the morning rays that sweep the earth: day 

the night which vanishes into blazes of light

 dawn, dawn, dawn, dawn