Too Many Things
––after Neruda
Shells combine with stones
and the whole beach with moonlight.
The surf rolls over the seawall,
and all the houses of the world
are flattened by wind.
No one can hold a pebble’s shadow.
No one can touch the sun’s corona.
All of us are sand under sand.
They have spoken to me of space,
of infinity and black holes.
I have no idea what they are saying.
I only know the hand of the clock
and I know it has no stillness.
When I lived in the holidays
I praised the glow of melting
butter, and the sky
blushed. It is so large,
the mountain which fans into the sea.
When I wake every morning
who embraces me or doesn’t?
And when I sleep
who prays that I’ll rejoice when I wake?
This means to say that slowly
we have taken to the hills, and
now we roll like dropped fruit.
I have a mind to combine things,
mess them up, give them handles,
paint them, disassemble them
until all sound in the world
has the deep timbre of the river.
Joel Moskowitz, an artist and retired picture framer,
lives with his wife and cat in Maynard, Massachusetts. His poems have appeared in J Journal, Naugatuck River Review, Midstream,
The Healing Muse, and Whiskey Island Magazine; and the online journals Muddy River Review, Boston Poetry Magazine and Soul-Lit. He is a First Prize winner of the Poetry Society of New Hampshire National Contest.
