This is my attempt at the cento.

Riddle

Whatever it is, it must have

 the listening secrets
 of falling rain.

Two strings, one pierced cry,
here and there in the searing beam
that is like the twilight sound
coming over the hills, America singing
beneath its canopy of poisoned air.

The tongue even lies to itself

like a saint dying upside down,
in a land of shadow,
spread eagled on the soaking earth
that weeps light and rain.

The surfs of the body

are mating in the unopened crown of a Shasta daisy
rolling away in the wind,
with the damn wonder of it.

Poems Used

Louis Simpson “American Poetry”
Gwendolyn Brooks “To Black Women
Robert Creely “The Rain
Rita Dove “Variation on Pain
James Dickey “Deer Among Cattle”
Donald Justice “Men at Forty”
Galway Kinnell “Vapor trail Reflected in the Frog Pond”
Carolyn Kizer “The Gulf War”
Yusef Komunyaka “The tongue is”
Li-Young Lee “My Indigo”
Denise Levertov “Stele (I –IIc b.c.)”
John Logan “Spring of the Thief”
Maureen Seaton “Swan Lake”
Robert Bly “Looking into space”
Robert Hass “from Drgaonflies Mating”
David Ignatow “The Bagel”
Lucille Clifton “There is a girl inside”

 © 2013 Stella Moreaux