March 19

This another sort
of entrapment–

the weight of ought
and should

even now even
here waking so late

to a colorless sky
and still-bare branches

backlit and immobile
I went to stake the peas

with sticks to try
to gather and balance

things now well beyond
reason now well past

care even the hermit
juncos stopping

to observe
my shoddy weaving–

silence and mania
in this setting

of a rescinded spring
of days that can’t even

bring themselves
to dawn– if longing

is a sickness
and love is a fever

what then
is their absence?

What then
is the cure?

(147)