How ridiculous these stubborn buds
boring through the barebones
limbs that drowse and sway,
chill winds and deific sun
chattering away, the dull deliberate
badinage hammering away at
this day’s brave facade. So it
goes along as it comes, detail to detail
the memory is marched to the top,
this lived on died on hill, mingling
the lifelong and the tossed aside,
your name still an exclamation—
thunder and fire and love
busting down the gates. My name
whirlwinds and dust devils,
a burden for the broom,
an exhalation of this obdurate absence.