- thinking of previous post, remembered this from the last poem in Way Stations, "My Byzantium" (1996):

7

Not the flower, but the whistling stem,
the stump still sprouting
desire from pain, pain from desire –
a homeless voice, roadside day-
lily in rearview mirrors,
unstemmed longing, infinite,
to the barren node of the
horizon.
Not for itself,
but in response, a choral thorn-
crown for harvest of black-
eyed Susans tempered
by drought – the keening
proud repentance
of Appalachian eyes.

From the fissure, a breath
of warm air – the frozen flower (touched
by a human hum) blooms.

In cliffside cave or hermitage,
a prehistorian, unfrozen now, draws
out Nativity from spring charcoal:
under the modal drone of mountain
banjo, streambed clay (glance
of a goldfinch) rose infant lips
are moving (do, re, mi. . .)