Touching the Earth

"But look this is not yet
the other age
this is the only one
between the brown
pictures and the blank film..." – Merwin, from "Frame"







slender foot trail
along the Monona
very few walk
this morning and
the benches become
markers of age

those frames of ice
have crushed to the shore
and there you can
speak to them
even though we
are told not to

for a loneliness can
only come when
there are not others
when there are no
exhibits of the earth
and here are ancestors

as the sky looms
and the shoreline
calls and carries
us their lives back
to us by every
letter and live face