Selected Poems

by Duane Locke
© 2000

 

THE UNKNOWN PATH Only a rare tourist walks this path,
Two shell-white ruts,
Surrounded on each side
By darkness of matted pine needles
And mangroves speckled
By the red eyes of tiny land crabs.
This tourist is usually lost,
Angry his life is in the wrong place,
He searches to find paved walkway.
The ruts have almost disappeared
Crossed by the morning glories' sinuous stems
And the golden, spiked globes of young sandspurs.
I'm happy this path is not known,
For if known, the path would have been destroyed.

 

LONG SHADOWS

Although no one is a giant,
There are long shadows here.
People have a long darkness following them.
Their shadows send a darkness across prairies, plains,
Forests, rivers, roses and wounds.
But these darknesses are denied, avoided, overlooked,
Allowed to rot.

If these darknesses had been loved,
Cherished, cultivated, not denounced, concealed,
We might have had a bright, shining civilization.


TWILIGHT

The twilight wades from the horizon
Across the pale green darkening water towards white shore sand.
Twilight steps up on sand, water in top of upturned shells turns silver.
Ghost crabs come out of their holes, gaze with eyes on outstretched stalks.

 

MORNING SCENE

Pale sunlight, wrinkled atop shallow, wind-stirred water,
Quivers over starfish slowly crawling and wrinkling
The pale gold bottom sand of the water puddle.

 

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