Static

while sparrows & kinglets
while jays
while aerodynamic oak leaves

I sat inside with
a silence well past the age
when it could ever get pregnant

mouse nests in the furnace
were converted to ash & heat

a silence that sounded
very much like static

white-throated
ruby-crowned
blue

11 Replies to “Static”

  1. Second what Rachel said.

    Carries me, reading, exactly as I want to be carried – but with surprise.

    Once found a mouse condominium complex so complex and Escher-eqsue in my gas grill in spring that I didn’t grill all season for lack of heart to dismantle and burn it.

    The ones in the wood stove always went, though.

  2. Thanks, Rachel.

    Theriomorph – It’s when they’re made from insulation I wrapped around the pipes that I take particular offense. Especially when they build in the back of a bookshelf or a file drawer.

    marly – Not shaped, but definitely prompted. A spill-over effect.

    Tall Girl – Very small passerine. Here in the eastern U.S. there are two species, ruby-crowned and golden-crowned. In Europe, there’s a species of kinglet called a goldcrest.

  3. I like the sparky, staticky feel that is not-haiku but distant, wayward cousin. Like mouse feet running in snatches, or quick bird-winging, or the attention span after having sat over-long in silence.

  4. Thanks. Of course, one of the main reasons to work on poetry — or anything creative — is to experience immersion in the moment, and over time to extend the attention span.

  5. It’s a gem; I like the way you dropped the verbs off the first three lines, and that last hanging ‘blue’ note!

    ‘a silence well past the age
    when it could ever get pregnant ‘

    Isn’t it good to get to there?

    There are also firecrests – I’ve never got close enough to any I’ve seen to establish whether they were gold- or firecrests, they don’t stay still long.

  6. Hi Lucy – I missed your comment earlier. I think your kinglets have more intriguing common names than ours!

    The verbless phrases are a good example of experimentation flowing from tiredness: I couldn’t think of verbs at first, so I just wrote them like that and kept going.

    Bill – Insulated ducts? Sounds like a good idea for more reasons than one. It’s no fun lying in the dust and purcupine shit every few years to re-wrap all the pipes.

  7. No, I wouldn’t think.

    Hm! I gather you use steam heat. I had you down for default central air; noisy squirrel-cage blower — “static” being the whoosh that silences birdsong: a furnace misunderstanding!

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