CURIOUS EQUATION

​MARIANNE LYON

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Today     Mary Oliver keeps me company
She doesn’t parlay gossip in rocker on front porch
sip tea     watch ruckus kids
kick    holler     entwine in double-dutch ropes
 
Instead     speaks of fiery desire to thrive
sadness with humanity’s second-fiddle-living
unexplored notion of infinity
She calls a black clad figure over
 
invites him to join our afternoon radiance
Mary ponders his weary stare     sagging jowls
She doesn’t converse but allows her poetry to 
articulate      there are rifts in your long black coat
 
I am speechless at first     have a hollow feeling
a thrumming sense that my body has become a drum
yet I hold marvelment that Mary allows me a front seat 
to inviting improvisation
 
She intensely addresses him as Mr. Death (yes!     Mr. Death)
when you come like an iceberg between the shoulder blades
I want to step through the door full of curiosity
wondering     what is it going to be like
 
I sink into inquietude     queries abound    wish we could     
repose under tall oak     heaps of acorns lie in warm grass     
calmly contemplate this open-door      inquisitive eyes     
inquire of ineffable cracks   fissures     rifts