City Of Love

Sing to me from budding trees

Carry on and carry less
O My City

O My Lover

A hometown that needs no defenses?
Love without envy?
An easy life?
A happy death?

Know these blue skies and clean water
for every thirsty foreign child
friends of friends I've never met
smiling fat girls and
uncles in freedom's lucky trance.

Mercy stands by the road
drawing circles in the dry red earth
with the corner of his soft boot.

My father is an optimist.
My mother, slow and old and practical.

What holds us together.

City of Love
The Return of Mercy

Some day.

Some say.

Some do say.

©Susan Birkeland

This poem is from Susan Birkeland's new chapbook of poetry and drawings titled "The Bruised Angel Almanac"