J. P. Dancing Bear

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Tempt

I was afraid of their tempting rain
and the lusting flowers in my heart.

I felt an ass most of my life under their craft;
always staring at the wrong things—lumps

in my throat, the backs of my hands beginning
to spot with my age.

They pull out of me a spirit long-since
absent. Ghost haunting a younger night,

desireful, restless, burning with a passion-
fire I have learned to dowse.

I say the word love, over again, love,
as though it is a turret I call home.

I cover my head, my eyes, duck low
fearful of the shapes clouds might become.

 

 

 

Scarecrow

you bring him plucked wild flowers,
singling one out for his tattered lapel.
In a gust of wind that only effects
his arm, they rise as though offering
you a dance.

Your shadows have already entwined
and here, in the smooth fields of grass
where one season embraces another
you feel compelled to drop the bouquet
and reach for his hand;

to let your dress of clouds carry you
in an orbiting swirl. Here, time has no
offering to interest you. Within the torn
fabric of a man, you see remnants
of the original color

like a dappled sky, over the rolling hills,
stitch grass, the patchwork of shadows;
and you can feel the motion of the land,
till you cannot tell any longer, where cloth
ends and the field begins.