And the Small, Damp Vesuvius of the Hills
by Michael Blumenthal
No one really knows if the pasqueflower will have done its duty
by the time the soft mists and drizzles of April have arrived, or
whether the silly voices that resemble the small oracles of beasts
can truly speak to us, but I do know that, whatever way we dare
look at it, the perfect regard of some similitude looks back at us
from its posture of haughtiness, and, one angel after another,
the molecules of significance undress, the insects hang-glide
into the valleys, and everyone who knows anything about love
gives his own little demonstration of affection, the birds commence
nightly to pontificate from the bushes, the elixirs of the underbrush
rise and proclaim themselves, and up up up in the remarkable hills
the ardor for majesty takes off its clothes and the animals rise up
in their lairs, and every single-celled animal that knows how to pray
prays, and the sunflowers sway in the valley, and the little child within
us says its prayers, and heads off to sleep, and the hills wink good-night.
Copyright © 2008 by Michael Blumenthal.
This poem is part of AND, poems by Michael Blumenthal, to appear with BOA Editions in 2009.