Softly (she sleeps)

Moss
        How must it be
         to be moss,
         that slipcover of rocks? —
         imagine,

        greening in the dark,
         longing for north,
         the silence
         of birds gone south.

        How does moss do it,
         all day
         in a dank place
         and never a cough? —

        a wet dust
         where light fails,
         where the chisel
         cut the name.




        (Peripheral Vision, Bruce Guernsey)



SIT TIBI TERRA LEVIS
S. M. Y.
MCMXXXIX — MMVII