Gregory Orr – Ⅱ

Part Two  (Selections)*

 

I never planned to die.

I never expected to be reborn.

I didn’t give much thought

To anything, until

The Book let me know

The score. The Book

Did most of the talking.

 

“Where is your mother?”

The Book asked, as if

I was a lost child.

 

“She’s gone,” I answered.

 

“How is it then, I saw her

Inside me and talked with her,

As I talked with all the mothers,

Listened to all the fathers

Who spoke of their sons

And their daughters

And the lonely ones who had

No sons or daughters?”

 

All that between two covers?

In a book the size of a matchbox?

You have to open it.

If you want to see the light,

You have to strike the match.

 

 

*

 

Facing away from the light,

I looked at the world,

But so much of it

Was obscured

By my own long shadow.

 

Turned around now, I see

Each object

Gilded and glowing

In the sun, know

The sum of them

Is the beautiful

Body of the beloved,

Which is the world.