V o x P o e t i c a

Song of the Waterbed

by Don Berger

O sandy ways, O desk, O chair I’m in,
Women, men maybe, sing something with the sky in it.
The flowers pile up.
Like the finest soaps,
books everywhere, the chairs calm and still.

The cherries disappear from the bowl.
Ah, you cherries.
Ah, those cherries.

May is here in lantern flies,
This May in lantern flies,
She pulls back the chair,
Our queen.
Our birds?
The baby stands by himself

The room relaxes, the guitar is quiet,
People come out, joy for us.
Someone strong runs to the store for us.
The light follows his hands.
The legs of the blue racehorse.
We’ve gone out and heard the rain fall.
We go down the trail on the mules.
With slow arms we pull on the rope
Like one who makes the decisions,
Until what looks timeless is constantly changing,
Until the room tightens up then eases again.

Here is something
Already written,
But my heart until now.
The cars are resting in the lots.
The leaves and color keep.
The squirrels are alive in the trees,
Their tails pointed straight up.
And all the dogs from the rooms are barking,
Everything on the earth is going on,
It moves, spins when we think of it.

The people walk up and down the street both,
Every tree is high because of the sun.
The birds in the nests fly out of them.
Our days spread as through the green
Great sea

afraid of nothing,
And the slow shirts
On all the beautiful backs.
With an eye toward walking, to a different place,
Someone or other opens the door,
The sky half-spotted,
Produced by dark oaks.

The quiet streets whisk:
The people we want
talk, now.
The sand,
The wind
Writing no letter.