sunt lacrimae rerum

*sunt lacrimae rerum: 

After Symborska’s Returning Birds

An angel made of earthbound protein,

a living kite with glands straight from the Song of Songs…

falls down and lies behind a stone,

which in its own archaic simpleminded way

sees life as a chain of failed events.

                                                Returning Birds

                                                Wislawa Symborska

remember the bed you got up from

with regret, how easily the sheet

lifted from your knee, how simple it fell

against the curve of his spine,

covering nothing of the night before?

remember how the salt of it all

was still on your bruised tongue

and how dry your eyes themselves

were how they dried themselves

to sleep and then when it was early

enough to wash you were the first

one at the sink and you chose

the white cloth so you could see

how deep your sins were? And then

how they spread apart

in the palm of your hand, a trail on the face

cloth?  The stubborn rub, when it’s all sunk

too much, and the only thing lifted

is the cotton itself, when that rub becomes

frenzy, when, like childhood

pencil too heavy in the fist

is scraped away, erased.  Remember?

And that shadow on the page?

And the elastic dust

from the once pink tongue

of your favorite and best

eraser?  That you hesitate, for one second,

to brush away?

*sunt lacrimae rerum

                                                They weep here

For how the world goes, and our own life that passes

Touches their hearts.