Mary Ruefle

HELLO ROOSTER

Do I have time
to live in this world?
Loud and clear
I hear you
but I am sleepy
as a dormouse underground
where all the midsummer
fairies go in winter
when they get thrush,
where ant things
can be heard.
Even Kahlil Gibran is
around here somewhere.
The age at which
I first became immune
to the interlards of philosophy?
Who knows? Who knows?
I am left in the dark
that flows from a pond
overgroaning with lilies.
If there be such a thing
as far-off unhappy
things to be sung
you are it.
Hello Rooster.
Do I have another day?

MARY RUEFLE is the author of many books, including, most recently, The Book (Wave, 2023). Dunce (Wave, 2019) was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the LA Times Book Prize and longlisted for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics’ Circle Award, Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures (Wave, 2012), was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism. She lives in Bennington, Vermont, and, from 2019 to 2024, served as the ninth Vermont State Poet Laureate.