Mostly in the Afternoon

Kindness is the last part of love
after the muddy tumble
of spring and all, after the summer
forest-consuming fires—
their shimmer
often mistaken for the moonlight
where the pale knight loitered

too young to know, as we all are,
save the unloved,
who learn faster—
burns clean to bone, and then
the bone-saws and this awful
silence. Who can wield it?

Silence is my ocean.
I think it knows me.
I know it doesn’t care.
All around us the children
are lengthening the hem of night.
Who remembers
that this always happens?

The last tree, no longer visible,
has let loose its black seeds
into the damp air:
crescent-shaped, shining.
There’s kindness in the kernel.
It will not satisfy.

***

From my new, limited edition chapbook, published by Red Glass Books

it all stayed open

poems by Margaret Diehl

book edited and designed by Janet Kaplan

$12 plus $2 postage    paypal margaret.diehl@gmail.com ( and email me your name/address), pick it up locally if you’re in NYC, or send a check to Margaret Diehl, 24 5th Ave, # 1209, NY, NY, 10011