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Poems
By Michael Burch
Daredevilry
Trees
full of possibilities
whisper of ancient mysteries—
mysteries of birth, of life and death.
Each leaf—illuminated, light as breath—
gives up clinging to the old verities,
embraces its frailties,
skydives ...
Moonflower
after Robert Hayden
Marveling,
we at last beheld the achieved flower —
both awed and repelled by its alienness,
its moonlit petals,
its cloying fragrance,
its transcendence,
its shimmering and wavering intimations of mortality ...
Michael R. Burch's poems have been published by hundreds of literary journals, taught in high schools and colleges, translated into 19 languages, incorporated into three plays and four operas, and set to music, from swamp blues to classical, 61 times by 32 composers.
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