its unfurling— Rather than the kvetch,
the caterpillar tent that billows—
Sheer wave combed open in the wind—
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
Knob
Finite snail evolved from a peg,
all twist & no spiral, turning
neither inward nor upward: here’s
a key to our egalitarian metaphysics.
The knob involves us in the machine’s
unfinished business, it turns us
into connoisseurs of the abstract.
And hell, it’s fun to roll things
between the fingers—
they were made for this.
The caveman in me says
smash it & suck out the marrow.
The Medieval peasant says
splash it with holy water
to drive out the small devil
whose millstone it must be.
But I say alas that our machines
are surrendering their squat manhood
to a remote.
The Trials
May all beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering.
~ from The Four Immeasurables
And in that tale, like bits of broken teeth,
like gems or brittle tears, a thousand grains
are spilled upon dark ground. Because the soul
looked full upon love’s face, it now must count
and gather, harvest shredded wool among the bramble,
stitch its craft of mortal longings to the impossible.
The stars, as always, withhold commentary.
Only the blossoms along the fence offer
sweet worth, stubborn hope; the thorns,
their pointed epistle: I wound to heal.
In response to thus: Night prayer.
Remnant heat in flickering pools
below the horizon— Driving back
once more in the haze of evening,
it seems so simple— The engine
of intention presses forward
into the dark, the road unfurls
like breath. A line of white
reflects the right-hand border.
Steady at the wheel, all curves
taken in increments. At higher
speeds, the windshield stipples
with dusty ochre and green.
In response to small stone (132).
A hawk circles over the ridge
higher and higher, until the line it draws
is thinner, fainter— Plumed, taloned, sprung,
targeting; on the way to becoming gone, out
of sight, and finally out of feeling’s range.
Something of that wild heartbeat once burned
its bronze tattoo from the inside of my chest.
See the gouge-marks on leathered flesh?
Evidence it wasn’t all fetters and stays.
But oh that velvet hood is soft and hides so well
the liquid glint in the corner of each eye.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
The hummingbird isn’t the only bird
with jewel colors. And the dead
cherry still plays host to insect life.
The sign that points the wrong way
isn’t necessarily wrong. You know
what it’s like to pick at the same scab:
play the music in the same way. Don’t get
ahead of yourself— for a change,
let the day worry about its outcomes.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
Knots
With some trees, the knotholes
are among the last things to go.
You can find them staring up
from the ground, eye sockets
that never belonged to a skull.
It makes sense that trees would grow
their hardest wood around the weakest
points in their architecture.
This is called the branch collar,
& it is woven with wood
first from the branch
as it overlaps onto the trunk
& then from the trunk
as it overlaps onto the branch.
Behind the collar, in the parent
trunk or limb, the branch core forms:
a cone of decay-resistant wood
shaped like a spear with the flared
base facing outward, keeping
the agents of rot at bay
long after the rest of the branch
has fallen off. This is the knot.
Arborists talk of intergrown
& encased knots, loose & sound
& pin knots, red & black knots.
We who know them only from lumber
might imagine hard pills the tree
had been unable to dissolve.
We would not be wrong.
Each time a tree says yes to the sun
a no begins to form, firm & sharp
& pointed inward.
Based on a photo post from March 2011.
Despite
“… who needs a needle
to thread the seamless labyrinth
of the rose?” ~ D. Bonta
Because they bent
too far across the walk
and scratched your cheek
or arms whenever you passed,
I tied the roses back
with twine; and yet
their flushed and creamy
scent is warmer still,
more than the radial glow
of motion sensor lights.
In response to Via Negativa: Thorn.
Thorn
Thorn begins with thorn,
a dead letter from
the Old English alphabet.
It’s an aborted branch,
a weaponized nipple. It draws blood
instead of expressing sap, Mother
Nature red in tooth & claw,
rose-hipped or hawed.
But of course it doesn’t bother the bees,
for who needs a needle
to thread the seamless labyrinth
of the rose?
Tokens
Scree of some wild creature overhead, wing like a stroke of graphite that flickers just out of sight. On the way back, we drive through soybean fields yellowing from the heat; and whole stands of trees bent like saplings from the last passing storm. A sky the color of beaten copper. Everywhere, some reminder of the fragile. But also what persists; surprises. For miles and miles, not a house or rest stop. And then— Where did those droves of tiny moths come from, riding tiny bits of prayer flags into the wind? Bodies of soft brown. Velvet fuzz of cattails and rushes. Perhaps, this time, the boatman will let us through. We cross the Chowan River just as crickets drill tin can holes into the evening.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.