On this penultimate day of National Poetry Month here’s a poem about moving to the other side by Dean Young.
The Invention of Heaven
The mind becomes a field of snow
but then the snow melts and dandelions
blink on and you can walk through them,
your trousers plastered with dew.
They’re all waiting for you but first
here’s a booth where you can win
a peacock feather for bursting a balloon,
a man in huge stripes shouting about
a boy who is half swan, the biggest
pig in the world. Then you will pass
tractors pulling other tractors,
trees snagged with bright wrappers
and then you will come to a river
and then you will wash your face.
from First Course in Turbulence (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1999)
Muddy Bank 