Saturday Poem

He Locates the Live Museum

….excerpt

Has anyone ever said, out loud, that our job is give ourselves
away? That now and then we must have rest from that work?
that this is the resting place?

…. The Mountain Man returns. The soldier returns. The shy
inhabiter of rooms, returns. The husband returns, The frightened
girl. The boy who cannot tell, just yet, how right he is.

…. Embracing. Everyone embracing.

…. Where we show us what we made in solitude. Where we
tell us everything we know.

…. Where we catch our breath, and weep.

…. We sit on each others laps and look into our eyes, where
the dancer who is actually a fawn plays flute and the girls, who
are all of them sisters sing.

…. We are “drowsy,” as Keats used to say, “by the fume of
poppies.”
.

by Lew Welch
from
Ring of Bone