Sep 16 2007
HOLDING THE LIGHT
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by Mankh (Walter E. Harris III)
9/16/07
What is a gooseneck lamp doing in Carl’s meadow?
Why are the geese crossing the two-way street in suburbia?
Could it be something to do with the jiggy society,
so much pompous and ignoring the circumstances?
Urgency removes doubt,
a human being lifting a car to save a life–
divine adrenaline has not been studied enough,
nor altruism, nor buy one give one free.
Opening an inner door…
towards the end of summer and eyeing October
peppers red as apples
apples red as whatever you want them to be red as…
from New Orleans to Dharamsala to Baghdad to the ghettos of America
the obvious are being overlooked: the poor, the reincarnated, the childlike,
the ones who do not tan from sun because they have been here so long…
and they are all holding the light, in the dankest corners
and in the shallowest pockets of economic warfare they are holding the light…
as a peach on the ground, as a red brick-wall in the afternoon glow,
as the eye in a vision, and the sparrow who grabs on
to the middle of the long, tall stem of a sunflower…
holding the light.
Mankh is a poet, essayist, and small press publisher.
He is co-editor of the forthcoming primal sanities! a Tribute to Walt Whitman an Anthology of Poems and Essays.
His website: www.allbook-books.com