TOTALLY UNDONE BUT SINGING

by P. J. Williams

 

            for Shuqualak, Mississippi

 

Whereas the sea creates
music, the sky can also bend

to the ground & strum
the earth apart, leave it

totally undone but singing.
Afterward, the space

the storm leaves between
ground & cloud fills

with saw teeth & spinning lights.
They have a way of cleaning things—

of rubbing the sky
back together—a bow

drawn its length along
the taut fiddle strings, my lungs

opening into the morning
as if for the first time.

The house is back
in its original form: block

by block we stack it nearby
for the rebuild, the decrescendo

almost completely decayed
as the pierced water tank

drains at the feet of pine trees
across the road.

 

 

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