Michael Dennis Browne
The Face | For Paul Wellstone and All on the Plane

The Face

I wonder what war would do to the face of the world,
    more war, I mean, more and more.
I wonder whose face the world is (I believe I know
     whose body it is), but I touch
the face of the world in the dark as if I were playing
     "Meet the Giant" with my Uncle Bim,
knew he was soon to take one finger, say
     here's the giant's eye, then plunge it
into the half of an orange he was holding.

I feel around in the dark on the face of the world;
     I wonder what war would do
to the mouth, whether more teeth will go,
     whether the mouth will be raw
with new wounds, or dry as never before
     with sores of the old fears.

For Paul Wellstone and All on the Plane

The only treasure is in the heart.
When everything else that is not the heart
Is torn away, the heart is passed.
All that you stored in love never lost:
The treasure lives on, lives on in us.

Poet's Biography:

The author of 5 books of poetry, Michael Dennis Browne has taught at the U of M since 1971, and will have a new book, What I Can't Tell You, published by Carnegie Mellon in 2004. Give Her the River, a picture book with paintings by Wendell Minor, will be released from Atheneum in 2004. His grants and awards include two Minnesota Book Awards, two NEA Fellowships, a Bush Fellowship, and others.