Fable

Delicate glider, legless dancer,
You slide through life serenely,
Slow to anger or to fear,
Your eyes held out before you.

"Slug" is such an ugly noise
For your translucent elegance!
I put aside the word, and see
The real you, in all your grace.

I am so full of burning anger
At all the world's stupidity,
Like a cup of razor blades
Heaped to overflowing:

But you can slip along an edge
And never take the slightest cut,
So deft your touch, so sure your step.
I slice myself again and again.

A shell-less snail traces lessons
Upon a dew-washed concrete wall:
The humble student stands before him
And seeks to learn serenity.

—San Diego
5/1/2001
Copyright © 2001 by Green Sky Press.  All rights reserved.  Backgrounds and images are copyright by their respective authors, who retain all rights.  This background is LRock054 from ABTA, Absolute Background Textures Archive.

Published in Under a Quicksilver Moon (working title), Spring 2002, ISBN 0-7951-5065-2.  Also published on CD and cassette tape in the audio anthology The Sound of Poetry.

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