Drummers

Collected Poems, volume 13:

We drum upon the stones
to release their time-honored energy
in an angry flutter of confused notes
A sing-song tongue of all tongues
teaching us impatiently in explosive! primal!
understatement that -


 All thoughts remain known: but the words
are so musically muted as to be unintelligible ...
Proudly announcing their nakedness
they diffuse across vast fields of sky.
Igniting prairies of stars into silent raging fires;
consuming nothing except time
burning the ashes into light.


 And here in this sacred occasion to spin quicker
than the wheel of spring-fall
the swaying trees listen intently
Branches outstretched to clutch at
any drip of comprehension
we might carelessly fling aside
in our mindful and hurried extravagance.

©copyright 1994
Seth Anderson