Stephen Ellis

Enough

The lotus unfurls
and reveals skeletal
trees across

dim meadows
where things are
born, grow

and conspire together
to die, each
in accordance with

their place in
an overall design
that cannot be

seen. It is
January, the birds
are thin, and full

desire for spring
gnaws at the roots
of still-living

plants whose absence
speaks for us
when we cannot be

silent, but remain
in the dominion of
our bodies, open

to the residual
sense of dying
and being born

again from the cold
where we remain
least aware of

our closeness
in mercy to
the menace

with which we
lick light from
early morning

ice with the majesty
of our small
dark tongues.

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