Thunderstorm Grass

by Helm Filipowitsch
Babilu
Second Place, September 2015
Judged by C. Wade Bentley


Subdivision sunset/roses fade/maple lurks
and the sky bleeds from blue to black.
The child within/the child who never sleeps/
the child who ran the backyard fences
and thunderstorm grass/the child who explored
the basement caves of a thousand musty houses/
the child who slid into home plate
on every ball diamond in the city/that child
recreates each moment on the ashes of the last.
There is no dam to hold back time/there is
no time which contains the child.
Child and time/time and child through
the swirling atoms which have for a moment
settled and become this image already gone.


I enjoyed the way the partitioned phrases of this poem built on and played off of each other like waves coming into shore and then receding at the last. --C. Wade Bentley