Tom Hibbard


Tom Hibbard

gesshom

Assent  25

the trees’ secret message
 indecipherable winds
  cannot legally be claimed
 I’m not sure I know
  why perfected stars shine

you can’t alter what I am
 you have forged the name
   of the judge of letters
 your telescope showing sleepy half moons
  glistening off wavelets
 in the lagoon’s cooling breeze

overstated news making me miss
 the cove of hope
  the dainty litigation
   that breaks rude pots

lit palely by a well-trained chorale
 high in the rib-cage of Creation
  the mythic Seven Sisters
 try to find a way back
    from lyric fees

the lights of Tirzah on the symphonic shore
the blinking lights of radio towers
 will not leave anyone out
  will not let injustice sneak by

why are you elsewhere in being here
 can you say what you think happened
  will we meet again
 unprodded in asking directly
  to accommodate for the first time
 through the diaphanous filter
  our briny principles

work is to not be swayed
 by frogs croaking in weeds
  celebrating dead branches of the fire
 morning the color of apprehension
  when forbearance is revealed
   shivering in the cold

I want to be like a shelter
 in the valley where I grew up
I want to be as famous
  as its unspoiled beauty

you are at home amidst my searching
 you are an outcast in your own land
you have connected the plenitude of dots
 unwitting accomplice to rest

laughing tall grasses quilted
 with meteors of agreement
  serenaded in imaginary outposts
 by fruitful divergence
I begin to think of you
 in the way you asked
  anger isn’t lasting
 our being side by side
  can’t hide the thistle’s symmetry
 close has become far away
  and far away close
 joining in the somnolent current
  the belittled universe
 going in opposite but
  identical directions

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