Pastoral Medley

You were a mystery loneliness pursued

An alpine lake where no face

Had been seen

The paintings were sorry for you,

The music too, the ballads and the violins,

The flowers and the dirt, the rain,

& the heavens oh yes the sky could diocese your mistake

When you called it empty

The heavens knew itself a painting and a song

And that it was you, looking up who, mistakenly, was empty

The flowers didn't have to have feeling things make sense

In trunk s or petals.

They just grew there in the dirt,

Grew in color and in the rich dirt,

Never thinking anything about rain,

Though their life and death belonged to it.

None of them complained at your use of them,

Even loneliness, who couldn't live without you.

CLAUDIA KEELAN is the author of three collections of verse most recently of UTOPIC,

which won the 2000 Beatrice Hawley Award from Alice James works She teaches in

the Creative Writing Program at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas.

photograph fay Stefan! Karakas

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