It’s the quiet
I like: the quiet
of Granite Creek
nobody roughing
it up for gold /
the gold town dead
& the people: a
black-robed nun
walks the trackless
main drag: her
arms are full
of black-eyed susans.
I stand on the sill
of a jack-pine cabin /
nails on the door
from the torn-down
billboards. The roof
gone, sun shines
through the ceiling-
beams / sun on the
roses which grow
on the floor: wild
roses cover the floor.
It’s the rotting wood
they like she said.
The rot makes them grow.
And they do grow and smell
and revel in the rot and I
in them. And I who can
speak no words
in this lush land
where only phantoms
admit of the rot, would
say quiet words to the roses
the wild growing roses
in the roofless house.