Love is the Quarry

The hounds are weaving. 
Their feet in grass,
like spears, interrupt my sleep!

I awake.  It’s a worthy chase.

These are the hounds my father fled, 
the same white eyes, 
the muzzles gray.

Their breath is hot, burns grass away.

The hunter who rides in their noisy wake
has a face as slack
as his ride is aimless, except to track.

If he were a shepherd, his sheep would sleep. 

The quarry is love these white hounds drive
in canyon air toward the rocky lair where silence steeps:
a kind of silence that is mine to keep.

And shall I sing? Sound has no place.
And shall I dance? Or stamp my feet?  
What shall I, then, 

but send white doves left in my care 
far from these cliffs,
let white eyes trace love’s clean escape.

How dogs will howl! My blood they want.
The ledge is narrow. I taunt and taunt.
I shall rage. I shall cry. 
Then once I’m wrung out, 
I shall jump.