Love gives all its reasons
as if they were terms for peace.
Love is this but not that
that but not this.
Love as it always was.

But there is no peace in the mountain
cleft where the fruit bats scatter
from the light.
There is no peace in the hollow when
the heat snuffs night's blue candle.

The outline of brown leaves on
the beach is the wind's body.

A crow is squawking at the sun
as if the screech itself is dawn.
Let me hear every perfect note.
How I loved that jasper morning.


About this poem
"The poem searches for the physical proof of abstract things-wind, morning, love. The brown leaves lead to the wind's form, the crow to the morning. The pattern of these parts suggested the shape of love as it appeared to me."
-Jonathan Wells

About Jonathan Wells
Jonathan Wells is the author of "The Man With Many Pens," forthcoming from Four Way Books in the fall of 2015. He lives in New York City.

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The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day[at]poets.org.


(c) 2015 Jonathan Wells. Originally published by the Academy of American Poets, www.poets.org. Distributed by King Features Syndicate