A Sake of Ephemera
by Daniel Morgan
i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
wich is natural which is infinite which is yes
-e.e. cummings
Today has brought a brilliant shine
Underneath this shaded tree.
The scented breeze of my Spring-time
Is filtered from the boughs of green
Into an apple-sunshine wine.
I close my eyes and taste a glass
Of strawberries on each eyelash.
Such days are for such good, true friends.
When we forget all that is stored
In afternoons, they tell again
The cherished tales of childhood lore,
More stories at the summer's end.
So far, those souls I have not seen,
But rest in what the wind will bring.
It takes my silence with a breath
And mistrals out a line I know
At once. The words I heard that blessed
My sight was what a poet sowed,
And sought me like a Sabbath rest.
The only run-on phrase of two
That ever gave his pen its due.
One was something of the rain,
And her diminutive hands.
But this was like the perfect name
That matches how one feels the land.
Yet "blue true dream of sky" was changed:
For "leaping greenly spirits" bliss
Stemmed from a younger poetess.
The words from him I first from her
So foison mouth had heard, I sigh.
For she is not among the myrrh,
The lavender, and sweet summer —
Only in evenings that once were.
I sit so still I think I've died,
Forgotten all the wind had hummed,
And cannot feel the swaying pendulum.
The swinging earth has gone inside
And I hate each and every word.
Were it not for the moon's rise,
I should have thought this play absurd,
And golden years just nature's lie.
I only think of her not here,
Or worse, if she were coming near.
If I could stay within a couple
Letters, couched immutably,
I'd squeeze the life from syllables,
And dwell between the lines I see.
I think I'd like that after all.
But it is such a changing thing,
To have so solipsist a fling.
A hundred years, nothing's the same.
So "nice" meant "stupid" yesterday.
When "joy" was just a "dream"
In a thousand-year-old age.
I'm better off with these sunbeams
That vanish with the even-tide,
Claim no pretensions and no lies.
But words are ever so contagious
Like when you learn a word that's new
And see it everywhere. It's foolish
To think no personhood ensues
When they are so ubiquitous.
Still, persons are what hurt the most.
Sometimes, it's even worst from ghosts.
My friend of former afternoons,
Is somewhere close and circling.
I think of how abrupt and soon
Her words and mine had ceased speaking
Of what we each to each impugned.
The penance due does not efface
Our words, and so we plead for grace.
Even in death, I read of life.
And living letters, signed epistles,
Are Christians called. Moriah's knife
Still hangs above to carve the soul
Out of the unhewn, worldly strife.
So we are saved in His translation,
Building temples of our proclamations.
The letter kills, but so does man.
Our names are such that we are dumb
To what is written on His hands.
An etching of them captures some
Stark images of life that can
Undo the script that Adam wrote
With better spells and higher notes
Before the scroll is wholly burned.
For now, the map remains untouched
And perfect till we've fully learned
His own cartography that such
As we can feel its every turn.
Until, of course, He traces them
Forever new, then once again.
But here the dance is circumspect
As may is in the forrest clear.
Her paralipsis is so perfect
That I can't bear her coming near
Without a name she might accept.
If two meanings would just barely agree
We could collude our diverse reverie
And cross this breath-like boundary.
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