Small, round words

Small, round words

We have talked this through on frantic city streets
when we were young: After all these years we are still
at a loss to learn the September sky; we go right on failing
to memorize the colors the leaves will turn
in autumn. Or the reasons science soon
might confirm your soul.

I am about to stop writing
about my dead. The poems
are piling up in plain pine boxes;
they're lining unmarked graves
and fluttering like ash above
the redbricked chimney
of the Woodlawn crematorium;
always, I am leaving
small, round words like stones
upon the crypt.

In the moments before our deaths,
we have heard them say,
we might gather strength to make
one last demand
that won't be met.

By then, unmet demands
may come as no surprise.

After all these years we haven't learned
to map the September sky.

After all these years
what we know best of summer
is our own penchant for missing
luminous moments.

Kenneth Salzmann
Woodstock, New York
Partners in Health