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What the Trees Were Expecting


by Darryl Price



that day is my barking up and leaves falling down story, but in their elephant slowness it
seemed no more than the regular run of the sun slightly
disappearing here, and then maybe reappearing there, like a lost color way over the horizon, or the finally
 
warming up to us wind's hands applied to the bruised
and broken places. It had to be so once upon a time. You
were so lovely to feel falling soft against the day with
its eager tree buds trying desperately
 
to touch your life giving hair, flowing and flowing, and even your thin clothes seemed
like some organic part of the whole turning
into green landscape of just thawed winter, which
you embodied like a clear mountain stream able
 
to walk visibly around among the mortal world that
for some reason remained on its feet...I never questioned your right
to be this beautiful. I was there. I saw
you pour over and among them as if you
 
were made of everything at once, and therefore
could just as easily pass through any substance as
long as there was some light and a little wind to navigate by. But
in retrospect, even I know you only
 
get to pass that way once, if you are somewhat lucky in life's short held transparent embrace.
We were that lucky that day. I found you and you found me
and together we let go of all the things
binding people to their sorrows. In this way
 
we blessed our sorrows with the only acceptance
lovers have to give before we left the
garden, once more as always, for the newer never-
lands of the inevitable forever, never to be seen again and the now gone.
 
Darryl Price  040210dp



Bonus poems:



Staircase at the Foot of a Cliff/ a Four Poem Chapbook

by Darryl Price


I don't care any more. I used to. But 
I can't see that self any more. I get
Virginia's walk into the sea, you
get to choose the monster who devours

you. You make the sacrifice because no
one else can. I don't care any more. What
remains is all you have to give any 
way. They don't want to know you. They don't want

to know what happened before they came. Your
smiles or your crying means nothing. They'll look
for the gold in your teeth. Don't care any
more if you meant to tell me how much. This

emptiness, this emptiness, emptiness
is all. I can feel. I loved you. If that
is not enough then it never was close.
Only the sea understands that everyone

will disappear. Waves are all we are. Waves
and froth. Maybe that makes something pretty
in the sun. Maybe it's all dark under
the nightmarish moon. And stars are the nails to

keep our skeletons from running away. 
I don't care any more. I thought I would.
Love killed all my heroes. No one was saved.
You know what I'm talking about. It's all done

pretty plainly written in the songs each
generation discovers half-buried
in the sand. At first they think it's treasure.
The sea laughs, more sadly than cruelly. The

dolphins are warning us to stay out of 
the pool. I just. Don't. I tried I guess. It
didn't work. You didn't care. And now is
my turn. I'm feeding my lost words to the

seaweed. It's as good as feeding the ducks
who see us as generous fools, not the
elegant dreamers we act like. Sorry.
I thought we had something more to say to  

each other's faces. Should never have listened.  
If it mattered the sea would not be  
opening its mouth on me. There will be 
nothing. Gone for currents that are greener. 



Poet Seated Before a High Fireplace by Darryl Price

The curtains have always had something interesting to say to us 
about the floor. Perhaps we should listen. I know 
it's all up to me now. They will speak for me not 
with me. But the chair simply wants me to relax, to
stay put, nap. The pipe wants me to commune 
with the dying fire and free all its dancing cousins 
from their entrapment in the circling arms of the 
bullying bricks. I'm sure they could tell a secret 
or two whispered up into their sooty spines to the hairy 
inhaling stars above. Even the trees, each dancing with 
a head full of thick leaves, full of anxious 
jumping winds, bang their whitened knuckles upon my window frame, each 
pane tonight searching shelter from the relentless,badly 
spitting rain. Everything is relentless tonight. My head is 
pummeled and sleepy.  I'm not so old I no 
longer believe in the slow crawl to the nearby vegetable 
garden. But there are shadows in the innocent clouds outside. 
And ready to spring open fangs under the busy 
roots that need to be side-stepped on the way 
to the laden table. All of you shall have your soaking moonlight  
say. But it will be in as few words 
as possible for now. Then it's on to the bedroom with 
its own silence of noises. And sleep. I love you all. 



Still Life (Columbus) by Darryl Price

There in the pear's waxed features 
was another sweet looking 
perfectly ripe cheek. It shone 
like a sun pearl surrounded 

with a galaxie of brown 
freckles. I so noticed the 
gushing waterfall of hair. 
I profoundly was glad in 

my heart for the one brush stroked 
color of her blue eyes. All 
other fruit seemed harmless by 
comparison. The bowl grinned.



Blue Snow, Fayburrow Drive by Darryl Price

This is the quiet we have all been waiting for. 
It came while we weren't looking. And now the invitations 
arrive. Tap tap tap. Everyone wants to accept. Some of 
us come in small gleeful groups, bundled together as one. 
Others of us are being dragged along by snorting horses. 
The horses don't seem to mind. It tickles their ears. 
They know what rewards are to follow. And there are 
plenty of snowball children meeting ambassadors from the snowman kingdom. And the sledders of course daring anything to slow them 
down. Even the sun and his long yellow and gold 
scarves seems to be holding his hands over this new 
landscape with a cheery welcoming beam. It's here! At last. 


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