(1) Flat Ground
On the plane established
for whitebeams and for names
this morning it is said to be May.
On the street called Beatrix
my soles suddenly encounter
clumpish, creped before all worlds,
one fallen crow:
big bright black dead bird.
Flannely leaves linger,
cling about the keening line of light
with the sweet open curling
of corn-meal-colored pajamas.
How can jackdaws die?
How hit pavement faster
than the morning shadow?
(2) Creditor
‘To whisper your name is a kiss’
where my lips
shining clear in winter cold
open like a blossom
and the mantle of my members
rises, one hungering human
(golem of my long and living need),
stalks over day’s grubbed swath,
claims last word limber
as even now my bones:
and will the hazel come to hear
her name, the flake her destination?
(3) On Re-Reading My Own Verses
What was this longing
to speak the thorn,
call into the valley of waiting
what prodding writes my blood?
Was never rose
drubbed in dayfall
fellow,
shadow enough?
No, for there must,
would be another
heard over hoofprints’
rain and straggle and sputter:
more than a me,
so that my flesh broke
welcoming,
took cut with glee.
Word was a bulk,
rock hereward burdening,
breaking to give river’s
glisten over lips pried wide.
Whose was this homeward heightening?
Fish knew, neared in passing,
flashed at such times with
rainbow fins my sharp lone yew
standing where water moved
solemn over stone.
--Lloyd Haft (from Atlantis, Querido 1993)
