So Fast
Nothing has ever run so fast
as the rabbit my dog flushed
from the bushes behind the house.
Three, four lightning jumps across the lawn
and gone
into the wood beyond. My dog
would have been embarrassed had I
let her off the leash. She does not think so,
and barks inconsolably, looking then back at me
in panting disbelief, eyes dark with something like pity.
In a Wood and Suddenly
In a wood and suddenly
a fit of praying –
nothing extravagant,
only a few words of greeting
or thanks spoken by way of silence.
Odder than this – if odd such is –
the birds in unison quieted themselves,
enraptured as though by the silence bespoken.
I suppose it was their silence
indicated my own
which, grown at last too large, one of us
broke – explosion! –
like a puffball beneath your toe but huge,
shivering the air, radiant.
MARK GOAD is a poet now living on Cape Cod, southeastern Massachusetts. Born in Ohio, he has lived and studied in Chicago, Geneva, Switzerland and Boston (with sojourns in Connecticut and rural Nebraska). He has completed undergraduate and graduate studies in English Literature, German language, theology and philosophy. His work has been published in journals including Assisi, BAPQ, Epiphany, bluepepper, Decanto, Big River Literary Review, Extract(s), Crannóg, Ayris, Concho River Review, The Wayfarer, Contrary, Turbulence, Christian Century, Poetry Salzburg Review.