The Basin

The voices of my friends
in the sunlight

All of us running
around outside
our deaths
……………. —Michael Dickman

The Basin
—Boonton NJ, 1958

running around outside
our deaths, inside our lives

this wheel’s on fire
spun off its hub

feet hands arms
touch, hug

in a town a river ran through,
ran through arteries

to lust, to love
many streams deep
and breathlessly wide

a basin in a gorge
through which
turbulence glides,
we came to hang
to dive, to ride
its incoherent flume
its white exhilaration
to slide over boulders
to the basin’s calm
into its still cup

space     shade     light

this  .  that     then

there    here

pied
incomprehensible
balm

.
by Jim Culleny
1/7/12