Falling on Grass
Stumbling on melons, as I pass,
ensnared with flowers, I fall on grass.
          Andrew Marvel, "The Garden"

The house is sold; I take my leave. Not mine,
that room where I lay shipwrecked, sad thread
unwound from Love's bobbin. His eyes were stone.
Bee winter, when the hives cast out their dead.
Once I drew flowers, petal and leaf but no stem.
My teacher scolded, "You don't have to breath ..."
This March wind rioting through my garden;
Time's great beach; flatfish, thirsting, trawled by grief—
I've always liked odd company. Ten years
and a green health growing, here we all met:
hummingbird sucked Lenten rose, and lovers
spoke—seashells, bright bone the owl-limper blessed.
     Still he'll scour our reef, his mark forgiven.
     Now I have been freed. An old flaw, shriven.

Copyright © 2004 Elizabeth Biller Chapman All rights reserved
from Candlefish
The University of Arkansas Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission