Here's another one I really love.
The Other Side of the Sky
When God was waiting
to be invented, the sky
was thinner. You
could have touched it,
then turned away
without the fear of being seen,
gone back
to your father's house
where everything was quiet.
Perhaps the moon shone
on a mountain lake.
Animals and heroes
were the shapes the stars made
long before you heard the stories
meant to explain them.
And when you asked
your father about the sky --
if there was another side
to it, if there was an end --
he said you'd know
how to think about it
when you had to.
And you believed him.
Of all the lies
you carried with you, that one
hurt the most to leave behind.
Stephen Dunn & Lawrence Raab
The Other Side of the Sky
When God was waiting
to be invented, the sky
was thinner. You
could have touched it,
then turned away
without the fear of being seen,
gone back
to your father's house
where everything was quiet.
Perhaps the moon shone
on a mountain lake.
Animals and heroes
were the shapes the stars made
long before you heard the stories
meant to explain them.
And when you asked
your father about the sky --
if there was another side
to it, if there was an end --
he said you'd know
how to think about it
when you had to.
And you believed him.
Of all the lies
you carried with you, that one
hurt the most to leave behind.
Stephen Dunn & Lawrence Raab
The secret of poetry is cruelty.--Jon Anderson