Brigit Pegeen Kelly

The Satyr's Heart (excerpt)

Now I rest my head on the satyr's carved chest,

The hollow where the heart would have been, if sandstone

Had a heart, if a headless goat man could have a heart.

His neck rises to a dull point, points upward

To something long gone, elusive, and at his feet

The small flowers swarm, earnest and sweet, a clamor

Of white, a clamor of blue, and black the sweating soil

They breed in...If I sit without moving, how quickly

Things change, birds turning tricks in the trees,

Colorless birds and those with color, the wind fingering

The twigs, and the furred creatures doing whatever

Furred creatures do. So, and so.  There is the smell of fruit

And the smell of wet coins. There is the sound of a bird

Crying, and the sound of water that does not move...

If I pick the dead iris?  If I wave it above me

Like a flag, a blazoned flag?  My fanfare? Little fare

with which I buy my way, making things brave? The way

Now I bend over and with my foot turn up a stone,

And there they are: the armies of pale creatures who

Without cease or doubt sew the sweet sad earth.