Passages Poem by Frank Avon

i

I shall not hold
what once was

yesterday
gold

a poem
doesn't grow

lovely as a tree
in Tennessee


ii

He ran away
before he was three

through underbrush and weeds
to Ebenezer

and kept on running
a way from Them

from convention
from submission

by indirection
(insurrection

only more subtle)
to find

direction out
and him Self.


iii

'Tis better
(mark my words)

when you are old and gray
you shall say

to have loved
mindlessly

and hopelessly
and lost

(despair)
then to wait

till at last
you should find

love that was
your first


iv

Under the spreading
(it was an oak really,

a shingle oak)
chestnut tree:

gone, now
gone
lichens and bolls
festered

its leaves fell
all year
detritus;

what is left
is the spreading sky
and claritatis


v

songs are words
only words

and the air
they're sung to

wind
that blows

unless
you can keep your head

and thread
your way past the pompous

and silver your senses
when all about you

and in your mind
are losing theirs