“Spring” by Denis Johnson

 

by now even the ground

deep under the ground has dried.

the grass becoming green

.

does not quite remember the last year,

or the year before, or the centuries

that kept passing over. all of these blades thought

that america’s grief over the ruptured

.

flesh of its leaders

was another wind going into the sky.

a rabbit stiffens

.

with hard sorrow up from the grass

and runs. well,

it is another spring and in the clouds

.

it is the ranging spectacle of a crowd

of congressmen accusing one another, each

moving in his own shadow against the next.

:::