Sonnettics

I’m sure my hands have never been this cold
Unless it was the time I died, I died
Inside my grave with nothing warm to hold
Not even all the tears I cried, I cried
My heart has never felt like this, like lead
Except for forty years before, before
When all I knew was that I wasn’t dead
And no one ever sang there’s more, much more
In time I’m sure the sun which set will rise
In time I’m sure the clouds will rain, will rain
In time I’m sure of nothing but the sighs
Of time each time I cry in vain, in vain
I’m sure my hands have never been this cold
Inside my grave with nothing warm to hold

Although the slice of moon is fiercely bright
at 5 a.m., the canyon’s fiercely dark.
I’ve run beyond the artificial light,
and passed between the gates behind the park.
The cool, dry air falls gently on the stream
which, in its turn, falls gently through the trees.
The moonlight shadows falling like a dream
upon the road where newly fallen leaves
lie still are only echoes of the fall,
the early fall.  My early morning run
anticipates the lateness of it all
before the early rising of the sun,
by this: a simple trip by which I’m found
with hands outstretched before the shadowed ground.

We slowly drive from happiness to guilt
Enjoy the casual stops along the way
To see some monument that someone built
Or watch the purple sunset turn to gray
The road is so much quieter at night
The wheels are so much softer in the dark
Don’t try to read the map without a light
Or analyze for miles my last remark
The song begins to crackle and to fade
The farther from the signal we proceed
The tune begins to sound like its afraid
Of interfering with some silent need
But silence is a humming static hiss
That never thought its words would come to this