Mighty Forms

The earth had wanted us all to itself.

The mountains wanted us back for themselves.

The numbered valleys of serpentine wanted us;

that’s why it happened as it did, the split

as if one slow gear turned beneath us. . .

Then the Tuesday shoppers paused in the street

and the tube that held the trout-colored train

and the cords of action from triangular buildings

and the terraced gardens that held camelias

shook and shook, each flower a single thought.

Mothers and children took cover under tables.

I called out to her who was my life.

From under the table—I hid under the table

that held the begonia with the fiery stem,

the stem that had been trying to root, that paused

in its effort—I called to the child who was my life.

And understood, in the endless instant

before she answered, how Pharaoh’s army, seeing

the ground break open, seeing the first fringed

horses fall into the gap, made their vows,

that each heart changes, faced with a single awe

and in that moment a promise is written out.

However we remember California later

the earth we loved will know the truth:

that it wanted us back for itself

with our mighty forms and our specific longings,

wanted them to be air and fire but they wouldn’t;

the kestrel circled over a pine, which lasted,

the towhee who loved freedom, gathering seed

during the shaking lasted, the painting released

by the wall, the mark and hook we placed

on the wall, and the nail, and the memory

of driving the nail in, these also lasted—

Source: Bright Existence (Wesleyan University Press, 1993)