Gary Wilkens

　
Transformation

Love is a great stillness,
holds the universe in suspension,
like a mote
in a water bead
on a grass blade
trampled by your foot
in the early summer,
the confused time,
not knowing what to do
with newfound strength.
　

My Metaphors

are a tenor in a vehicle,
his tux crisp,
his hair slicked back,
his jaw cliff-like
as he floors the pedal
and bears down
on something bright
only he can see.
　

Learning To Fly

The bird is disobedient, it will not fly.
The father wants to help it, he's a gentle guy.
Patiently he explains how birds are for flying,
not cowering in their rooms, not even trying.
He takes it by ankle and he takes it by wing,
up against the wooden wall he gives it a fling.
The little bird flys for an instant, then slides down
and disappoints the father. Bruised on its crown.
He picks it up to try again, hand on a thigh,
firm and patient, for he is a gentle guy.


The Exiles

Striking outward from the galaxy’s rim,
velocity a little less than light,
the few Last Ones try with parched minds to limn
what the void whispers, the shape of the night
that will not have a dawn. A century
they built these last ships, generations worked
and died to craft these engines. Undersea
they grew the great habitats. Nearby lurked
the planet stabber, the death head. This last
world he vowed to take. The myth enemy,
the old terror scratched on cave walls. Cast
like fortune-telling bones, forced like rats to flee,
they tell their young a story of return,of exiles,
of a billion ways to burn.