After the Plague
Dandelions rocketed up
from sidewalk cracks,
joyous, unrestrained,
seeds of sunlight in
fields of quiet.
And the fish multiplied
exponentially, like
God promised in some
irrational book
of ancient fiction.
~
Encouragement
A message for the horse-faced boys and girls
who will never know love,
pear-shaped, with pig eyes
and dandruff dusting their shoulders
like they are figures in snow globes,
existing apart from the world,
no oxygen, no warmth,
and only intermittent light:
There is a fine thread within you all
that no one has managed to cut
or knot or pull loose from you
and that is your beauty, your grace,
and your symmetry. Hold them out,
both hands, palms upward and open.
See the great gift you’ve been hiding
in each clenched fist.
~
All that I have done
in this life has been an attempt
to gild every rusted bottle cap,
every broken window,
every bent, useless swing set
in every backyard, with glitter,
with stardust, with the magic
that children know when they
watch an airplane pass over
and have the impossible proven.
I have built this great castle
only to find the wiring faulty,
a draft in the bedrooms
and the floors uneven.
This view, though, of sunlight
warming the west side
of each tree and lamppost
cannot be matched.
~
The poetry and prose of Robert L. Penick have appeared in well over 100 different literary journals, including The Hudson Review, North American Review, Plainsongs, and Oxford Magazine. His latest chapbook is Exit, Stage Left, by Slipstream Press. The Art of Mercy: New and Selected Poems is forthcoming from Holm Press, and more of his work can be found at theartofmercy.net