Love for Nothing
found in ‘Le Monocle de Mon Oncle’ a poem by Wallace Stevens
I mocked myself alone,
A thinking stone
In a sea of spuming thoughts.
A bird sought out his choir
Of wind, wet and wing,
A much-crumpled thing:
The end of love
For nothing.
Apples, like skulls,
Came rotting to the ground,
The fruit of love
For nothing.
The firefly’s electric stroke
Ticked the time
Of one more year;
Ephemeral blues
Merged into one
Universal hue:
The laughing sky,
Washed by winter rains,
Wild with motion and full of din.
A blue pigeon
Circled the sky around and round
On sidelong wing,
And, tired of flight,
Fluttered to the ground.
© Kim M. Russell, 2015
