Lament for Roral, Roric, Rorid, and Rory
- Lament for Roral, Roric, Rorid, and Rory
My dictionary states you're obsolete.But each of you receives a separate entryWhich is identical: an adjectiveMeaning dewy. In what past could people tell
The difference between the thin skin of wetThat sheathes the blades of grass at dawn, and its seaOf sparking tips? Between what films the leavesOf the madrona, and what beads will fall
From their lips? How much moisture forms the floatsIn the fisher's net of a spider web? Who could seeHow much it takes to lick the rocks aliveWith lichen? Something made such eyes grow dull
Or the light brighten beyond this sight. Now shootsOf grass hold only dew. No pleaCan bring you back. Roral will not laveThe tongues that don't recall they long for its growl. [End Page 85]
Michael Spence has driven public-transit buses in the Seattle area for thirty years. His poems have appeared recently in The Gettysburg Review, The Hopkins Review, The Sewanee Review, Southeast Review, and The Southern Review. New work is forthcoming in The Hudson Review, and was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His third book, Crush Depth, was published in 2009 by Truman State University Press.
