Heartland When did we enter the heartless age? ... - Lisel Mueller

In The Rag And
Bone Shop
Trade me, shopkeeper Yeats,
one filthy rag, one bone
that can make poetry
for all the jeweled bits.
...A rag to light a fire,
a bone to whistle on!
Proprietary, proud...

The Levitation
...Whatever exists is floating:
words without weight, bodies without resistance,
feelings wavy as trailing scarves
move through the gently dissolving center
between heaven and earth where we live,
briefly, in a mild light.

On Finding a Bird's Bones in the Woods
Even Einstein, gazing
at the slender ribs of the world,
...even he, unlearning
the bag and baggage of notion,
must have kept some shred
in which to clothe that shape,
as we, who cannot escape
...swaddle
this tiny world of bone
in all that we have known...