The Fool Card

Sun or fog or moon fills my eyes

as easy as the laughing of a ghost;

I gather my motley flowers in one bright boast,

following a cat I know leaps high.

Then I jump out and startle through an almost vast

almost-moment in the burning yellow sky,

where there was never any fool like—I

scamper on six live feet towards one coast,

push through time with my rare emptiness,

my steel gray pale gray courage, to the brink . . .

o feather, o rose, o cup. It's time to guess,

to grow out loud still deeper than I shrink,

to pull the cliff down through my happiness,

to know, know, know much harder than I think.

Copyright © 2003 Annie Finch All rights reserved
from Smartish Pace
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission