Post Mortem (after Vincent van Gogh's "Wheatfield with Crows")

what if i saw two moons in the sky
and they were both light blue in a twilight swirl
that was nearing the black of unconsciousness
and that crows     tiny     irregular     broken     thin
desperately winged for their lives against the whirls
of pure air i saw in the two moons’ rising

and say you were inspired by
the alien light in a firmament going on toward
the familiarity of blindness
and that the birds would flap twice and be gone
tiny lifespans in the sight of the moment
and that the tan grasses too
would go black then invisible in the new night
like a civilization without breath or momentum
like another country fallen
in the buried dirt below dusk

i could still hear the wind through the wheatfields
i could still imagine the crows’ fearless explorations
i could imagine     i could imagine
that the season could come again when the same moons
the one and her twin sister
would show the same as tonight
with the same birds
in the same country in the same nation
i could imagine     i could imagine

from Oedipus' First Lover (2009)