Pavane; Or, a Mouthful of Bright Blue Prayers

I thought it said on the girl’s red purse
A kind of sad dance and all day
Wondered what was being defined…
The real love that follows
Early delight and ignorance.
A wonderful sad dance that comes after.
—Jack Gilbert, “Pavane”

I may be sitting inside the best afternoon

The world has put on since the Permian

Extinction.

                  Except for the solicitous

Passage of a few cars, like the last birds,

Along the road out front, you might think

The world had stopped breathing.

     Until

The kookaburras start up like a brass band

Out of practice, and the children’s voices

Tumble from the house like applause.

The wind picks up a stitch in time and

Drops it in the amber elms.

     From the pear trees

That stand at my study window, fruit hang heavy

In the harvested light.  

                     And the afternoon is a blue

Pavane, dancing gravely by in geologic time,

Her eyes closed, her lips parted, and her mouth

Full of catastrophic promises.