Bucolics

You’ve got yourself a common name but a name
I can’t forget a name like honey Boss
you pour it in my ear
you pour it in my mouth
you make me say it Boss
your name it’s like a bird that’s come to roost upon my lips
no matter what it will not stir
it sings a single note sometimes it’s just a whisper others it’s a shout

…. is that you Boss
is that you hooting in the hollow
are you a night bird Boss
is that your face behind the moon
is that your hand cupped to the cricket’s ear
do you tell the cricket how to sing
do you say that’s it now softer softer now you little bug
do you pour moonlight on the river
do you say river let this silver ride on you
you’re up to something Boss
you’re like a treetop there against the sky a wave
you’re like a neighbour Boss
is your favourite game a game of peep-eye Boss
are you as sweet as you can be you cutie-pie
I can’t keep track of you Boss
you’re just too many things at once
you’re like a lullaby that never ends
a breath that makes the moment last again again again

….. that’s what I do when I can’t sleep a wink
I think about you Boss
I wonder all those yellow fireflies
even though they never make a peep
do they still call you Boss

~ Maurice Manning

A new twist on the traditional genre of pastoral poetry,
his Pulitzer Prize–nominated collection comprises seventy-eight unpunctuated,
untitled poems about the natural world, all addressed to a higher power called “Boss.”




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