All the Intensity Was Not in Vain


Outside the Aurelian walls of Rome 
I saw
A blue-winged black crow
Pecking a lump
Of dark brown ploughed earth.
I walked
Between the furrows and upturned pink stones,
Gathered 
Into my body and my brain
The blue of the crow’s wings.

I gathered the blue
To bring the blue
To her with pale blue eyes,

Her of the river
And of the wind.

I still have the blue inside my brain,
Inside my body.

Copyright © 2003 Duane Locke