The Term Broken

The term broken does occur to me.

The silence where the words once were
is evident. A dangling catch
for a hook that has fallen away
and a door bangs foolishly
in the interior image of a white and rainy day.

Among my friends I count the rushing arms of trees
whose lace embraces every coming storm.
Today they are hanging heavy, nothing more,
greenrobed in sodden velvet
much too lush to bear.

On our morning round, the sturdy sidewalk,
like the houses, trees, and sky,
yields nothing but the practicality of day.

Even the beach and the marshside shingle
are swept clean of phrases and left grey
by a tide that has combed the hair of the seaweed hillocks
in the sand like the heads of sunken giants
and is silently, damnably out.

This must be what it is like to see
the world with eyes alone.
God send an ending to this barren time;
repair the words
and let the landscape show  again
its meter and its rhyme.

June 15 2012