On Any Given Afternoon
a poem by Wayne Dodd

As if from windows

framed on the ground the familiar
faces look up

toward the light the birds
above us whistle and trill and yodel

in. The green mat of their hair
at the margins, the dark centers of light
their remembered eyes are

in the earth...Their mouths
are closed and yet

words enter us
like song, like the presence of Being
itself, all

the lost loved voices singing out
the language of existence, its

deep warp of shadows
across the yard,
the countless

deer that move
invisibly near us

in the dense, syllabic woods

Wayne Dodd reads his poetry
Poetry Online
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