Image by Unsplash+ in collaboration with Matt Bango
Listening In
the winter-bare forsythia is so many
arrows of neglect, bundled;
the light, quilted, a question.
I’ve made the sparrows,
they don't fool me;
neither do the flamboyant cardinals.
the frozen pond, though, disconnects
— brings doubts
sure: the next day
could erase all this
and introduce, as at the tap
of a key,
another landscape
but these tree limbs, black,
bent toward sight,
are listening
waiting
Few Have Noticed
Trees bend near to the ground.
New green flies bough to bough,
As if god were drinking.
The lake's blue steps up its pitch for attention,
Shoving twigs and eyes off course.
Even the truant schoolboy runs for a desk.
Nearby mountains give cliffs a sharp turn
And throw shadows in naive squares and triangles
Waiting, like skittish bathers, for the noon sun
Which, rather than coming with its grin,
Fills circles with red turning orange and black
Flushing the eyes of a radioed one
Whose station fails.
Shore trees beckon in orange wind
Issued from stiff clouds —
A septuagenarian swimmer strives for shore.
The Big "C"
The sway of their hands as
They simmer into this besmirched shore
Suggests they don't care.
Castles of death rise off the devil-tipped
White slips they balance.
Perhaps the guitars they hear clatter
With the slap of bones. There's
No doubt in the suggestion of their hips.
The bright-eyed dog on the rocks
Elsewhere on the shore doesn't concern them.
The pock-marked flashes punctuated with smoke —
The lightning under the cloud-heavy
Night sky:
There's no difference.
Cool seats sure,
They watch the sea come in.