--EVERYBODY TURNS

And in the morning if there is no friend again

And if the sky is still wearing her blue-black face

Hiding all those stars and the moon behind her skirt

I at least have poems to read

Books and books of them

A certain form of sustenance itself

So much so that when I finish

Reading a half-dozen or more

I can scarcely think about breakfast

And those fish outside the window in the lake

And that beaver in the lake too

And the eagle flying high overhead

They all know what I’ve just learned

That sometimes

When we are most alone and scared

There are places to go

Words to seek like medicine

And that these can fill our hollow spaces

And heal the wounds we thought

We’d wear forever