PAGE FROM A FESTSCHRIFT

A tomb figure
in daylight,
retrieved from darkness
where it was packed
away, an amusement
for the journey, not
the destination, 
which must be 
complete, without 
need or desire or beauty, 
and its distraction, 
here becomes 
the spark that lights the fire 
you've been gathering
kindling for for years,
balling paper, making
preparations, 
till over-prepared
it fizzles out, 
a symbol 
of a petrified ideal. 


PROSPECT

Across the roofs of cities,
above the rounded tops
of trees already
a precocious green,
the steeples represent
different points of view,
at war with one another,
that provoked 
real violence once, 
but now diluted,
after so much 
intermingling, it's
hard to tell
the parishioners apart,
except when they gather
at the doors of their
respective churches
to carry another box 
of darkness out.

Page 4

© Copyright, Keith Althaus.
All Rights Reserved.