Sydney Goggins
Taking Sorrow to Task

I begin with praise. For years you wouldn’t
take back the snow I asked to last.

If asked, I would have been sure
you were never as loud as leaves

whispering in wind, and never as certain
of earth as a place to dwell. I believed

you had other favorites, as far as worlds were concerned,
but I think it was you and not the other experts

who dyed my sunsets pink and ground
the clouds at dusk to a powder, indigo dark.

You pretended your names were
in textbooks only to warn us, not to instruct

or demand obedience. Not to remind me
your mathematics are simple, your radius

crossing a wood whose gravel path goes green
at the centered clearing—a path we followed

and followed and follow still, to where
your echo fades, as no other music can.