Two Poems 

Hugh Fox

Kaddish

Dying every night now,
knocked out with all I can
take, surprised when morning
comes and the thunder-clouds
are circling up from Illinois and
Indiana, the pond in the backyard
overflowing, the sound of rain
beautifully insistent on the roof,
never thinking in terms of large
bites, cuts, slices of Time, but only
today’s rosebuds, the magnolia
flowers already down, everything
around me except the dead squirrels
and rabbits on the roads, coming back
into being
again.

Winter Solstice VII

As if I have nothing at all to do with HERE, at least not most
of HERE, my mind wandering around the ancient Andes,
eating magic apples and adoring the sun as it fights crabs
and horses, kills deer and fish as it makes its way across
the sky to die and be born again, the center of the center
of the center of the world, sun-in-the-middle-of-water,
surrounded by the year-snakes coupling,, TI-A-NAKU/
TIA-WA-NAKU, here where He lived with the other gods,
feeding on the apples of immortality, wishing I’d never
seen so many mummies, autopsies, sat with so many of
the dying until they died, stood by so many graves and
dead temples, prayer-mounds, pyramids, seen so many
ancient vases and swords, walls, everything whispering
the same message of brevity swallowed in eternal
immensity.