Another Poet Dies Plying His Trade, Heroically

I deal in delightful abstractions. I
make rowboats out of windsaws
and then set them tumbling, to the
boisterous delight of the children,
whom I also proceed to set tumbling.

I paint elephants out of glass and stars,
I wind strings around the wind and
kick my heels to a beat that is neither
sound nor rhythm, but perhaps snow.

I let the rain rain down on its own. I
neither approve of it nor aid it in
any way. I rebuke the moon, for its
importunity. It retires each night, abashed.
Then some nights it won't show its face
at all, but it always comes back.

I break the week in seven places, and
observe my little rituals which mean
so much to no one: cup here, saucer
and give me a kiss! I pour cream from
a little pitcher and the steam rises sweet
to someone's lips.

I walk downtown and observe the sky,
it falls softly between buildings and
so do I

I get back up from where my shoe was untied
and I set myself up, just in time to
catch a sigh from a passing lady, painted
like a very understated clown - you
could hear her sighing a mile away,
and you'd wonder what got her down

but don't ask - I did, that was my mistake
and as her eyes began to flash I knew
I should have couched my meaning in
a metaphor
or two