Celebrated Silence

There are no birds here
the heavens have disowned me
it is quiet and I can read.

I have moved to a new state
where there are no chances
of eager flocks to rob my stead.

No thief! No bureaucratic widows,
lining the halls with milk and dust
as though only an intermittent coupon
waiting for collections in this avowed hungry line.

Ah, God, why did you bring me to this place?
Why not a valley of evergreens
that softly hum through the broken wind?
Give me the wisdom that I might avoid
the margins of highway arteries,
the gutters of the inner city, and accept
the peripheral indecision that mocks
the delicacy of our urban dispose.

I do miss a few things from my previous state,
I miss my family of deer,
they visited me daily,
I gave them leftovers and fresh fruit
they did not run from me,
not even the children.

Ah, God, why are you so quiet this morning?
Did something cause you leave in the hurry of the night?
It was not me. I was sleeping.
Did a Maryland bird come by and whisper Arcturus’s unruly name?

“Are we vexed on stars?”

I am not to ask that!