So many wreaths and trees are hostages
For the withdrawing spirit. Even the jails
Are covered with them and the station houses
Twinkle in boughs and bulbs a festive welcome.…
by Henry Braun
Humans burn humans.
With your permission,
the only animal that runs toward fire
to save, to gawk, to liven up the night,
cancels with fire the quick network of borders.…
By Henry Braun
The Appeals Court in Boston recently supported Maine's Governor Paul LePage in his removal and hiding of the history of Maine labor murals from the Labor Department's waiting room in…
by Henry Braun
A secret I know about America,
huge and twitching land of rumor
and cloud mountain, goes:…
by Henry Braun
To sit is to admit the emptinesses
of all one's losses, pointedly not here,
one after the other: maybes, noes, and yeses
bodied with wings (if they ever were.)…
Only from our point of view as masters of the table
does the eater of crumbs glow with a terrible
loveliness.…
By Henry Braun
Our homes, day after day, define us
up and down: window shades
letting there be darkness after light,
tables laid in the kingdom of waiting,…
DOVES ADDRESSING HAWKS
(from a roof in Cairo, Egypt)
"Before this hour is pried by your hawk's wing
rising from its gray nest above the lawns…
We burn cities.
With your permission
the only animal that runs toward fire
to save, to gawk, to liven up the night,
cancels with fire the quick networks of borders.…
THINKING REEDS ASWAY Happening, nowadays, feels different, everyone watching how our shoulders bend inward as if preparing for a doorway narrower than most, how memory with legs and arms and fingertips for…