MEDITATIONS ON LEAVING
By W.E. Butts
I'm thinking of Neruda
as a child in the yard
and his precious toy lamb,
how he spoke for hours
with an unseen boy
on the other side
of a high wooden fence,
until one day
he passed the lamb
under a hole they had dug,
and that boy
delivered his favorite thing--
a pine cone.
It was like any moment
when we are almost innocent.
Once, a friend and I
ran to the river
and broke the backs of sunfish
against wet rocks,
smoked from corncob pipes,
cut our arms with the knife
of our dangerous games,
and pressed the small wounds
together like a kiss.
I still don't know
how it is we become
what we no longer trust,
but this morning
before I left, I watched
your face turn away
toward whatever, just then, was.
TRUST
By W.E. Butts
I'm at the doorway
of my empty apartment
like a parachutist
in the open bay
of an airplane,
who feels the unpredictable wind
rushing against his face,
just before he leaps.
The wind is a woman's hair
he must fall through
to be with her.
The world is a fact
they will have to stand together on.
After all these years,
I've decided against loneliness.
Outside, the clouds
are purple and grey,
and the air smells like rain.