—All nature is a commune of offering and taking, compassion and sacrifice.
Gary Snyder, 11/9/95
Play
for me
as if youth was long, this
night
forever, death distant,
and the guttering flame
beyond fluttering to
nothing,
a moth’s wing.
Cradle
the guitar
and touch its neck, belly,
for a note robust and pure
to face darkness without
flinching.
Play as if the small
bones that make your hands
were spirited away
and only the tune
remained to speak
of what fine things they
once were.
One day
cataclysm will come.
The angels will open their
phials
and crack the graves
and there I will lie
stripped—
skull askew, the bones
of my spine, girdle,
and legs
resounding in the eye
like a fork to tune the air.
Until then,
each note departs
the wood’s polished curve
and makes its way against
the darkness for at least
a while before it dies.
The blood loops through the
fingers
for another turn. The
earth
listens, still.
Michael
C. Davis is
the author of Upon Waking, a chapbook published in 1999 by Mica Press. His
work has appeared in Innisfree, Lip Service, Poet Lore, and the anthologies Open
Door, Cabin Fever,
and Winners.
He has read his work extensively in the Washington, D.C., area and participates
in the Arlington County Pick-a-Poet program, teaching poetry in county schools.
