HOW WORDS USE US

Words are the only way we have to tell

Of far horizons hurtling into space,

Or how a swaying limb invokes a spell

On stars, to jostle them back into place.

Syllables follow hollows in a rock,

And mourn the heavy fallen heads of flowers

That, spent, drop seeds as surly skies that mock

Withhold the comfort of warm sudden showers.

We are the ill-tuned instruments they choose

To work their magic on the scenery –

A clumsy apparatus that they use

To bring a poem in focus, as each tree

Reaches toward heaven in this earthly night

With shadowed petals, twigs traced dark on light.