I Have Written Many Poems for Lost Dogs

It is not the fear
of dying that makes
hard rain fall or grass turn brown inverse
or seeing such vicious inequity
in this mad world which buffets my soul.
What makes me battle a wretched God for
The High Ground?
It is this:
How can the innocent suffer?
How do the wealthy and wicked prosper?
Where is it written that
a good dog should die lost in circles
before a filthy man?
Where is it written
that a child’s life should be snuffed out
by fools and lunatics clothed in cheap talk
and their loose needs of the moment?

I want to scratch that tablet clean
Where it is written!
Until the ineluctable is worn
smooth as the surface of a flat, speckled, stone beneath a fast-flowing stream.

But I have no such power.

For now
I will build a tight and lovely set of boxes
from hard, luscious, cabled Cherry wood
and lay them all to rest in their turn
and weep alone in hope
that we’ll meet one day
in some field swept by a fine devotion
and a coarse simplicity where
all things are set aright…