Cool rain waning moon a mud-drab marsh bird troubles the water the reeds don’t stir a mineral air rises from the silt soil the littoral so literal I plant my feet in earth that is also part water and returning know a return is also always a departure [I’m back! Was defending a thesis in a completely non-poetry-related field, am now enjoying life as a Master of Science]
I don’t know why I opened windows to let in such heat or why I’m almost tempted to sleep outside if not that there’s no such thing as safe or shelter might as well accept it the offer of fresh air and the way the day falls off into night and wakes with a chill blue moon you know just what I am here for
Silence is a thirst answered by sand a couple hours is a drought a day would be the end
Every song is more songlike– the cloud’s coloratura above the lake, birds carrying fish gripped in feet like good luck charms, for some at least, life it gives and takes, a talon or a hand is just one sort of cage, these gnats form another, atomic cloud -like above lily pads, the water dark and slack but for slow bubbles, small spheres, trapped air returning to air, entropy, natural order, beauty, everything in concert, live, […]
Bird Song #2 Passerine birds have perching feet, all songbirds are passerines– I was unsure at first, feeling more a tinamou, penguin, or skua in worst moods, but having lit upon this branch and begun to sing, I would now need a beak to hide this grin, even in flight I am calling, look, look just what the years have taught me after all, three toes forward one toe back–
Everywhere, now, I see reaching– the maple branches under summer’s half -done sun, the sun’s rays themselves, every airy exhalation, the personified breeze, all momentous acts, or acts of momentum– of course this isn’t what Heisenberg meant when he wrote about uncertainty but I could be anywhere, I wouldn’t care, the principle stands– I know where I am going, now, if not just how to get there
What’s in a name– ownership, or creation? When my friends say yours it makes me blush– On my tongue it’s like a river or a question, gently, but heard it is still a shock, que existes! The way they say it, the yours is implicit, but from me the yours is more an entreaty– contestalo pronto, por favor
A night wide open like eyes. The way a pupil seems to fill an iris but is actually a hole. A gate draws open in advance of an arrival. The capacity for delivery. Nothing so sure.
Bird song #1 On land I have the upright stance of an Auk, even at a standstill I am charging with abandon– this new happiness is about as blatant as Puffin during breeding season, ornately beaked, comic, bumbling, but hopefully, endearing.
A tenuous rain, or maybe it’s terse— nuance is giving me grief today. I feel empty, in both the sense of hollow and hungry— and contain enough hard reversals that I am as much a contronym as refrain, or apology— persistently ceasing, sorry I’m not sorry–
OPTIONAL POETRY 