Peacefully Sleeping Reapers

PEACEFULLY SLEEPING REAPERS
(click to watch video reading)

Crossing the river Saint Christopher scratched his ear
and a mosquito became enlightened

Saint Theresa stepped on an ant that
hobbled home and delivered the good news

Hasan of Basra sat for a moment in the
shade in Basra and the sunlight
lamented and the shade rejoiced

The threads of light that travel our universe
from heart to heart are such that
if we adorned ourselves with only a
flicker of them the world would

sigh with relief and relax its tides and
tidal waves around us all

and that thing every child wishes for
blowing out birthday candles
might actually take place

and horses in their stalls whinny with delight
and moonlight through the high small

windows of barns slant down onto
peacefully sleeping reapers instead of the

fiery and fierce swingers of scythes
over the lamenting heads of the living

so longing for death

---

4/17/70 (from Invention of the Wheel)

Categories: Poems