Blackbirdan online journal of literature and the artsSpring 2014  Vol. 13  No. 1
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back F. DANIEL RZICZNEK

Of Hardship

I cannot explain the vision I had
this morning beside a fatherly oak—

(onlookers rushing in every direction—
smoke below the lecture hall’s

pocked ceiling (how it feels—or
how I imagine it?) and the quick,

caustic tang—burnt powder
rich as speech, but no understanding

onward through blood–dark
stitching of brush, rain, and reed

resisting, little lanterns of pain . . .
To make the burden bearable

I speak or even sing into the gloom
as I walk, my shoulders burning

sweetly apart, smoke in the air . . .)
Nothing I couldn’t understand in it.  end  


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