The Next Poem
by Josh Hanson


Three days of sun and then the winds
Rising off the water and shaking blossoms
From the twin trees, trembling pink
Above the road, and the hanging
Basket outside my door, one purple
Flower cupped northward, swings hard,
Air yellowed with pollen, the cars
Coated, the day's ripe taste in our mouths.

The Natural World, we exclaim,
The seed dusting our hair, is in excess!
Though the winds die in the night, the dew
Wetting the pollen and running it thickly
To ground as we sleep, the divided ground
Wasting or gaining something by what falls,
Who can say? But the air is sweet
In that after-time, that dull hour
When the world seems finally spent,
Only to dawn again, insatiable.






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