The Great Unknowing

The moon is a scrap of paper in a leftover sky.
Trees drip the dawn in a lachrymose morning.
Little winged seeds stagger, wind-driven,
as the last of love disappears.

Crisis lowers itself on its belly.
Vineyards are burning. Children
are dazed with hunger. Tragedy
waltzes in, turns into tango.
Clutching threadbare sweaters,
the populace huddles indoors.
They eat the last of the rice for dinner.

The sun never rose today,
and the voices of the crickets are stilled.
Fortitude and forgiveness are tested equally.
Skin, breath and heartbeat drop away
as the landlords arrive for the rent.
Mostly our neighbors have shoes and bread,
do not admit to needing anything.

We have not yet perfected the art of connecting,
and like that old fading moon, we float too long
in our transparent selves, the pallor of gradual demise.
All the mornings of the world evaporate
one by one, recede into cloud-space.

Meanwhile, a wren, its dun feathers blending
with dying leaves, quivers outside a bedroom
window against the unyielding trunk of a birch.
A human speaks to it through the glass,
sentenced forever to the unknowing of the other,
but still able to imagine a certain softness of wings.

---

Donna Pucciani, a Chicago-based writer, has published poetry worldwide in Shi Chao Poetry, Poetry Salzburg, ParisLitUp, Gradiva, Agenda, Meniscus, and other journals. Her seventh and most recent book of poetry is EDGES.

[image: House Wren | Patrice Bouchard]