Three Poems by Jeffery Beam

I posted them here just because I like them. In every one, he speaks of nature and relates it to his own very personal experiences. They are beautiful. So is the sky over Asheville at sunset. This was taken in 2007 on the Flint Street bridge.

TWO LOVES

This is my lesson in humility.
My lesson in grief.
My lesson in the cruelty of the human heart, my own.
Trudging through deep southern snow:
finding both of your faces frozen in the white.
Sparrows still singing in the shrubbery.

I could not say it then.
I cannot say it now.
My heart split in two.
A tree limb weighted by ice.
A white - quiet and protective.
A white - dangerously warm.
My hands spiritless in the drifts.

Why do birds continue to sing?

LOVE COMES

not silent,
but noisy and indiscreet,
rowdy and persistent.
He comes in leaf fall.
musty earth in his palms.
Held out to me
I can do nothing but take it,
and take it gladly,
earth being the one coolness
other than water
to be enjoyed.

The fact of the matter is this:
tomorrow he may come silent.
Tomorrow may be love quiet as mist,
but today,
his cheeks rough with new hairs,
I smell furrows of new fields.
I turn over fertile soil.
I hear burrowing insects, happy worms.
I taste the gentle, crude, excavating damp.

The stain of love upon the earth!
Stain of love!
His sleep rattling me.
His sunrise and breath awakening me.

THAT NIGHT

That body
tree on a misty hill
That face
fawn with dark eyes
That full moon
surrounded by evening skies
That hour
pavement ending in dust
That grass
green with summer’s black-green
That night
coming over us with its breath
That sound
crickets singing at eye level
That body
me on the ground with their song
That body
another touching me with fire
That fire
round as the moon burning as the sun
That face
fawn with dark eyes
That you
speaking in tongues unknown and green
That sound
crickets singing in my ear
That body
tree on a misty hill