THANK YOU FIREFIGHTERS!! YOU ROCK!

City Hall, on the Church Street Mall, Burlington, Vermont

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In honor of an important local writer and teacher, Morton Marcus, who recently passed away, I am continuing to share some of his writings:
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Poems by Morton Marcus:

Poems from
The Santa Cruz Mountain Poems

LEAVES

Leaves crackle under my steps.
Like hands lifting my boots,
they pass me from one leaf to another.


I WENT INTO A STONE

I went into a stone.
Inside its silence
there was the static
knitting it together.

A silver lake lay clenched
beyond the trees, but every bush
was a closed gate, and iron branches
barred my way. Finally,

I crawled into a thicket of noise,
became part of a vast forest
where everything buzzes and hums
beneath a tight sky.

My shape was the silence
I could not reach:
the noise defined me
and I knew my place.

When I emerged into the light,
all the hairs on my body
were fibers of sound
scraping sparks against the air.

This is how I was loosed into my flesh:
white birds flew from my mouth,
insects crawled from my nails,
and I rose in the footprints of the great beasts.


NIGHTHAWKS

Nighthawks flutter over the field.
The white markings under their wings:
luminous bones swinging through the dark,
batons the dead use to conduct the stars.


TO THE TALL SPIRIT

Tall spirit of ashes,
do not preserve me from the weight of snow.
Let me lie down with the fields
and mouth the platitudes of mud.

Do not conserve me against the spider's shroud.
Show me the directions the worms refuse to take.

Someone collects the footsteps I leave behind,
another sips at the edges of my sweat.

Lead me to your robe of shadows,
raise me to your head
which is the hive of many voices.
I want to put my face inside.

I know whatever I am has a long breath
and what I find of myself
has the bitter taste of crushed leaves
and a bear's heavy tread.

The stones are my cousins
and the big rocks look down like uncles
who cannot find a comfortable place.

If I am only the damp space I blunder toward,
I know that nothing can start before I arrive.

http://www.mortonmarcus.com

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