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[Select the image to the right to hear audio of Shaun Griffin reading "Palliative" as well as commentary on his inspirations for the poem.]
Palliative
for Hayden Carruth
Are there words
for what you cannot,
lying in this wilderness, express—
with her hands to love you
to the center of the bed,
the window with a cardinal
at the lopsided feeder, and
the weathercock that crows
in all weather
as you almost crow
to the harrowing horizon
and the day after when solace
will be what we share
in the vowels of thirty books
left us to understand
our time was not misunderstood—
like you who wrote
whether in or out of mind—
the raging beauty of human arms
and took refuge there
just as we plunge them now:
nocturnal, redwing clarinetist,
hard-nosed master of the certain,
untimely trill before dawn.
Copyright Shaun Griffin. All rights reserved.
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