Jared Carter

Redux

I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night,
         alive as you 
And me. Though some are filled with spite,
          he said, it's true

They're on the run. I've come to sing
          the truth and spread
The news — the bird is on the wing,
          the fight is led

By ordinary folks who won't
          be scandalized.
And as for me, remember — don't
          mourn, organize!


Death

Its arrival does not matter,
          it is the same
For all. Time ceases, the chatter
          stops, the old names

Fade, only emptiness remains,
          already there
From the beginning — bleak terrain
          of nothing, bare

Of anything that ever was.
          What starts is what     
Must also stop. Not simply paused,
          but what cannot.

Jared Carter’s most recent book of poems, The Land Itself, is from Monongahela Books in West Virginia.  He lives in Indiana.