"Into the Mystery" -- Signed Broadside by Tony Hoagland (2 of 2)

"Into the Mystery" -- Signed Broadside by Tony Hoagland (2 of 2)

Of course there is a time of afternoon, out there in the yard, a time that has never been described.

There is the way the air feels among the flagstones and the tropical plants with their dark, leathery-green leaves.

There is a gap you never noticed, dug out between the gravel and the rock, where something lives.

There is a bird that can only be heard by someone who has come to be alone.

Now you are getting used to things that will not be happening again.

Never to be pushed down onto the bed again, laughing, and have your clothes unbuttoned.

Never to stand up in the rear of the pickup truck and scream, while blasting out of town.

This life that rushes over everything, like water or like wind, and wears it down until it shines.

Now you sit on the brick wall in the cloudy afternoon, and swing your legs, happy because there never has been a word for this

as you continue moving through these days and years where more and more the message is not to measure anything.

Included in The Best American Poetry 2018. Published in The Sun 2017.

Tony Hoagland (1953–2018) was a celebrated American poet & essayist. He published 9 books of poetry & essays & numerous chapbooks & broadsides. Among his awards are grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry, & a fellowship to the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center.