by Harvey Lillywhite
Hearing the Goddess
Authentic self, needy little baby
I name the goddess–she's the one who calls
In a clear voice above 20-thousand
Hertz that can’t be consciously heard but masks
What I wish to ignore and makes phantoms
To fill in the blanks when emptiness leaves me
Lonely. Thus the autumn when all around
Me is dying looks beautiful. The sound
Of death atomized in divine deafness:
I hear the V-flying geese’s honks and
The crows’ squawk as the voices of Nature
Calling me out into a gentle dream
Cartoon: a needy little baby in
Mama’s arms—fat, needy little baby.
The Fall
Ecstatic in the scattering color
Of November’s swirling leaves you’ll catch me,
As near to God’s hands as I’ll ever be,
Skipping toward the everyday squalor,
Sun at my back, hands thrown up in the air,
Clapping to the left then back to the right,
Pulled by the orange fires that ignite
In the maple, never quite getting there,
The bustling marketplace and sonorous
Tabernacle of the tree’s flaming limbs,
The ugly starlings' singing out their hymns—
Quick coruscation and high-pitched chorus
To the blue horizon as I come near,
Dancing, clapping, amazed by what is here.