From Dream Boat: Selected Poems by Tony Beyer

Cut Lilac

the dead smell the rain gives
to bunches of cut lilac
in bay windowed living rooms

is another version of the skull
your mouth feels when you kiss
a lover's or a child's clear forehead

but these are impetuous blue
upon the stems that throng
the vase's throat and splay from it

half captive or as free
as wands of light the recent sun
by peering wetly forth outside

has interspersed among them
divining paths like ours in time
that sprawl and gather haltingly

towards the next blind cervix
of the grave the best of us
will shoulder through with joy

The Year 2000

first of my
grandchildren
sleepy girl

wrapped in flannel
so only her soft head
and shut eyes showed

and I wept
at her birth
in what seemed

the last days
of the old earth
of placidity

our time
spoken with our voice
before history closed

and I would say
to her sibling
next to arrive

we don't know
what it is
we welcome you to

without trust
without a common
dream of freedom

eventually you will need
a passport
to be born

©Tony Beyer, 2007