Sounding

            when the last days come

            we shall see visions

            more vivid than sunsets

            brighter than stars

            we will recognize each other

            and see ourselves for the first time

            the way we really are

It bodies forth burdock, nettle,

dandelion loose leaf.

Sneaks, just below the navel

and calls from blackness beneath

the oceans; scattered echoes resurface,

fine pollen of blue corn.

In wavy shadows of my eye,

each name and place that struggles

to survive memory. 

Out in the desert, you know,

every moment the sun trembles

across the sky is the smallest death,

that you could call the smallest truth.

Somewhere behind

my left shoulder this life

reels—the only full realization

is death, say the Germans. 

Here is another: juniper trees

who reach into the bare red rocks

and have done for centuries—not long

after rocks learned to speak—

who will never say water

cannot be found and is not life.

© Michael Mahoney, 2011

[Opening lyrics from “Against Pollution” 

   by The Mountain Goats]

Dandelion; photo by Tony Russell