My Beloved Ruth Stone

This poem by Ruth Stone is one of my favorites. It can be about the return of someone close to the heart, but I like to think it is also about the return of poetry to a poet who has been far from it.  Maybe both things are the same.

Ruth Stone is my favorite poet and you can read about her here:


Ruth Stone


Poems

When you come back to me
it will be crow time
and flycatcher time,
with rising spirals of gnats
between the apple trees.
Every weed will be quadrupled,
coarse, welcoming
and spine-tipped.
The crows, their black flapping
bodies, their long calling
toward the mountain;
relatives, like mine,
ambivalent, eye-hooded;
hooting and tearing.
And you will take me in
to your fractal meaningless
babble; the quick of my mouth,
the madness of my tongue.