Love's Last

--Christian Wiman

Love's last urgency is earth

and grief is all gravity

and the long fall always

back to earliest hours

that exist nowhere

but in one's brain.

From the hard-packed

pile of old-mown grass,

from boredom, from pain,

a boy's random slash

unlocks a dark ardor

of angry bees

that link the trees

and block his way home.

I like to hold him holding me,

mystery mastering fear,

so young, standing unstung

under what survives of sky.