Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems, 1965-2003

Father Lynch Returns from the Dead

Rodney Dying (2) Dancing in a room full of muzak and smoke me with my sixty years of rings inside my fingers like trees with this breath which is mine and is yet not mine —but my friend is dying and there’s nothing I can do in this pure blue country. And a voice from outside the blue window said, “Everything is sad except what’s real.” Father Lynch Returns from the Dead There’s one day a year they can return, if they want. He says he won’t again. I ask what it’s like— he quotes St. Paul: “Now hope is sweet.” Then in his own voice: Oh well it’s a great scandal, the naked are easier to kill. The Baby Rabbits in the Garden —Our mother laid us there in grass and hair. The tunnel fell, the farmer’s boot arrived 236 door in the mountain ...