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The book The House of the World has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and is now available on Amazon.

Evening in July

Did I see my last sunset?
Did my fear,
burst like a fire with nothing to fear?
Has the end reached for my hands
jealous of their touching?
Is this an interlude, a limit?
Have I nothing left,
of the limitless waves that sing their songs?

Other ears listen,
other eyes see further than mine.
When does a man know what time it is?
My heart still fills like a sail with
all the words of the sea,
and my eyes hear
all the silences that blind men feel,
free of ceilings and floors,
and because they are nowhere,
they leap into the vastness of their lives.

Am I so blind
that walls are not walls?
I sit under my tree
in an indistinct darkening hall,
and remember back
as far as I can remember,
and think,
if I died, I died then,
not now.
And if I look ahead,
I died then and not now.

And if bewildered and very alone,
I choose to go on singing
as if anything mattered,
I choose one thing.
That everything go on without me,
and I will leave a cup
on my summer table,
which can fill with rain
for someone’s lips.
And that person
will be the last love
of my life

Published inIndex of all Poems