All the Soft Things of Earth
All the soft things of earth sighed when my mother died.
All the quiet noises of this world stopped, at once.
Not even the drying, wet leaves, after fall had tossed
them so. Not even the robin that sits upon a twig
in my backyard knew what to say when my mother died.
Not even wet tears that death demands. All the soft
crevasses of this earth and of ground, sighed; the dent
crevasses of pavement after so many years. All the hands
that tremble at bewilderment, my hands lie helpless
and cold on my lap. When the wind blew past, it sighed
deep, like taking in deep breaths of air, a laboring,
as if the universe had just stopped. As if I had just died.
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Collected Poems, 1998-2020
edited by Kwame Dawes
University of Nebraska Press
2026
