I began my life by touching you.
Soon your life began.
Now if I say,
it is blue, the snow,
I mean there is nothing
that is not snow, nothing
that is not bl ue as your lips.
You had asked me to stay during your illness,
offered to pa y.
No one can keep me that cheaply,
bea utiful boy.
Tomorrow, they will shut you in for good.
The sun will come up anyway.
They will lower you down
inside me, a constant dusk, gentian.
There, too, will you turn your face away.
I am going out soon to walk among the alders.
All I shall feel, as always, is myself
reaching out a stiff hand , myself
filling the air around each slim sapling.
I will arch over beside them
in wind that brings fresh snow
and drag my forehead on the ground.
For you. My disfigured one. My kouros.
Kirby Olson
THE ROMANTIC WORLD
The topography of the world is diverse:
There are canyons, rivers and a skyscraper or two.
Once there were many volcanoes. They were romantic.
