September - Joanne Kyger

          The grasses are light brown
          and the ocean comes in
          long shimmering lines
          under the fleet from last night
          which dozes now in the early morning

Here and there horses graze
           on somebody’s acreage

                    Strangely, it was not my desire

that bade me speak in church to be released
     but memory of the way it used to be in
careless and exotic play

          when characters were promises
     then recognitions. The world of transformation
is real and not real but trusting.

               Enough of these lessons? I mean
didactic phrases to take you in and out of
love’s mysterious bonds?

          Well I myself am not myself

     and which power of survival I speak
for is not made of houses.

     It is inner luxury, of golden figure
that breathe like mountains do
     and whose skin is made dusky by stars.