print previewback F. DANIEL RZICZNEK
Of Hardship
I cannot explain the vision I had
this morning beside a fatherly oak—
(onlookers rushing in every direction—
smoke below the lecture hall’s
pocked ceiling (how it feels—or
how I imagine it?) and the quick,
caustic tang—burnt powder
rich as speech, but no understanding
onward through blood–dark
stitching of brush, rain, and reed
resisting, little lanterns of pain . . .
To make the burden bearable
I speak or even sing into the gloom
as I walk, my shoulders burning
sweetly apart, smoke in the air . . .)
Nothing I couldn’t understand in it. 
Of Earth
Of Current
Of Hardship
Of Opposites
Of Religion