1. labour of love

“The Loon,” by Mary Oliver from What Do We Know

The Loon

Not quite four a.m., when the rapture of being alive
strikes me from sleep, and I rise
from the comfortable bed and go
to another room, where my books are lined up
in their neat and colorful rows. How

magical they are! I choose one
and open it. Soon
I have wandered in over the waves of the words
to the temple of thought.

And then I hear
outside, over the actual waves, the small,
perfect voice of the loon. He is also awake,
and with his heavy head uplifted he calls out
to the fading moon, to the pink flush
swelling in the east that, soon,
will become the long, reasonable day.

Inside the house
it is still dark, except for the pool of lamplight
in which I am sitting.

I do not close the book.

Neither, for a long while, do I read on.

I. Loon

What was obvious before
memory or recognition of it,
love, in a sound in a word
symbolic as we’d outlasted
years perceiving deeply would
scoff at the simplistic thought
of exactly how an animal
or star can stand for family
or adoration when having
not felt a famine in-between

The wild, a laugh that can’t
deride only smiles owing to
loons a humor priceless as
the childhood shine of a
pocket full of coin and an
eye for the next treasure
or early instructions in what
can’t match the past measure

Again it begins and you
present a different wealth
when the call comes to you—
a reverent moment in which
each previous communion
taken turns ashen looking back—
black and white, as plumage,
and wrong and right might go,
so that had to happen and be
had at its prescripted prompt
but not enough to steal the real
hunger you felt only you felt
only you felt so premature
as were cries of loons not
blindly responded to
as priests would ask of you
to a lake without outlet or
wood without escape, no
lifted as nothing freer into
air and maybe there it bears
well, maybe there it carries
and e‘er you find it shift or
chill or desist it will answer

Izleyin: Bedlam – Magic Carpet Ride (Reservoir Dogs OST)
II. Harvest Moon

Inlanders lack an absolute
affinity to the moon but its
influence isn’t far from blood
coming from a line of sea-
farers or islanders equally
enticed and reached by tide

Malta of small consequence
but equally large heart of
the inland sea famous for
centuries of faith and arms
the adherence in face of
wake and alarm in neighbor
stations of the crossfire a
man desires a peace to meet
the serene and freshly silent
island he’d defended

Belittlement wasn’t in
the departure, parting an
anscestral shore was foresight
always forwarding dreams
epitomized the best of us
to forego the easy catch and
familial nets of a familiar
fleet for far flung fields
in fortification of foreign
livelihood milieu and tongue

Prospect, come up, construct
kinder and maize endless
acres take shape and gauge
by the cycle of the new
yield fruit and hemisphere
more dear for the biding
part of the year shone dim
and frigid but never dead
stepping in the step of
company, partner, off-
spring off-setting it

III. Falling Star

Every child should feel
paramount and inconsequential
in turn having the night sky
as professor to the second
and a grander parental
confluence to the first
interspersed young urges
universal to center the system

Set upon fatherly shoulders
we gazed and pointed as they
named constellations to us
dippers little and big words
no need to whisper under this
distant dark turned luminous
an age indicative of constant
leaning and the want of it

Somewhere in the join
the dots shape of ursa
major and aries the querry
is raised—how do we see
the shapes as they claimed to
see them before jesus came?

They look nothing like bears
and lions to the systematic eye
behind the satellite century
tv defeated vision but
not in us and it was and is
how we learn light’s speed
makes days infinitesimal

IV. Fireweed — (Crater)

A planet that can’t exist
without fire at all stages
the bang tectonics and vol-
canoes to this day an inferno
to the core but for, up, and at
surfaces a learned reserve
with the nerve to compare
humanly stoics with the rock
of ages past the furnaces blast
of suns formations furnish us

A man that can’t maintain
granite in that terrain where
he desires to be sire however
hardy the pioneer a species
can’t continue by stone
and violence, alone

A companion that can with-
stand a landscapes harshest
branding the blackened ring
arrived at survived that
dire beginning with creaky
voices aching for initial
rains to water their raw
assembly and its burn

Neither primo on the scene
nor perfect in formation alive
development and aspect that is
secondary to one fact—life—
we live by more than blood
evidence in descendents in
helix coupling of genes let it
bide memorizing how much
inception exists in each tick
volition wishes its continuance

V Snowflake

Theories of it begin
conditionally peerless
an alchemist blend of
nitrogen and fire pri-
mordial pyre required
both oxygen and nuclei
before the stew threw
bones to old ghosts

Which is the phenomenon,
the incidence of genesis,
that it is repetitionless or the
explosion of form, of body
to explore the boundary
in nascency and cellular
vacancy means moving
to be one’s own whole
neighbourhood hermetic
is not pointed to dead ends
“
The Snow that never drifts by Emily Dickinson

The Snow that never drifts –
The transient, fragrant snow
That comes a single time a Year
Is softly driving now —

So thorough in the Tree
At night beneath the star
That it was February’s Foot
Experience would swear —

Like Winter as a Face
We stern and former knew
Repaired of all but Loneliness
By Nature’s Alibit —

Were every storm so spice
The Value could not be –
We buy with contrast — Pang is good
As near as memory –

A little Snow was here and there by Emily Dickinson

A little Snow was here and there
Disseminated in her Hair –
Since she and I had met and played
Decade had gathered to Decade –

But Time had added not obtained
Impregnable the Rose
For summer too indelible
Too obdurate for Snows –“

VI Cat Paw Bubastis

A symbiosis owing
to a peculiarity of genes
in felines leaving them
incapable of tasting sweets
regardless of the region
touched by rough tongue
the course becomes mainly
in the fleshly way inclined

A perfect carnivore
made domestic goddess
Bast bastion basked in
popular adoration for
her natural task, attack
the animals snacking fat
on standing fields or worse
the storage of portions off-
setting potential lack act as
spoilers of feasts our cats
devour trader rat packs
like an Egyptian SEC

We of the eukanuba and
kal kan opening variety
can forget the forest-king
lineage in the ankle bump
and whisker brush but snook-
ums could not, it’s hidden in
each crouch catching toy
mouse carousing prowl
hair raised growl when an
unwelcome presence steps
in or the endless engine
of contentment felt in
that signature stir of
respiration a purr worth
erstwhile indifference and
to be further fickle for sure

VII Maple Leaf

One leaf is seldom seen
hovering spotted solitary
in a tree or isolate beside
the pile privacy deprived
by wind and curbed for
clearness’s sake the fire
rakes there right angular
plots for privatization
of nature a declamation
first nations can’t debate

One leaf is the obscene
degradation of branches and
trunk a ploughman’s stump
centre fell in the front yard
sticks it is to the man and
another lump on loggerheads
the most oaken endurance is
grooved out for newer routes

One leaf reaches the scene
only to be pressed in service
certain pages once enlightened
turn heavily and over we
throw in the weight of living
oceans of green to be wrested
and read, the memoir view in
noir and blooded already

One leaf debriefing leaves
like an old lab’s dreams left
golden in the eaves retrieves a
coon he‘d treed and barking
up the same we see seven
seasons in one lap of a trunk
a base above rumination space
not occupied since chopped

VIII Midnight Sun Novus Clymene

In what way a day is
defined we may munch
the fuller portion of
one softly discussing
a mean solar year your
measurements subjected
to heavenly momentum
momentously indebted to
otherworldly movements from
bodies outside our sphere aims
pulling us past perception and
momentous mundus moves
me feet many feet removed
we reemit each a flare and
carom a miniature sun of
a fecund time idolatrous

Second us, once we let
the march be dictated by
acrimonious mission admit
the juilan admission of
himself with sol invictus
god as my witness I will
make mighty crusades way-
laid for a calendar page

Trio, between us and the moon
you whisper, relatively, re-
tiring and discreet but we
caught it all reading lips
in a mid-night flood light
consort of a wavering sky
as if wishing to sear sight in this
retina and nerve a permanent and
brilliant encampment stamped
under the lid and with
us forever blinded

IX Sunflower Helio

Golden beyond the touch
of our worldly constructs
are the earthly ones which
make the things of midas
kings and helenic femmes
mightily diminished when
countenanced beside day
lighters and bringer of eventide

She sings in the daylight
a badly I gladly abide and
haves me enrapt the winning
way only energy can brighten
pedestrian ways we’re faced
with even the discordant
tone can leap an aesthete’s
standard sneer and be at one

Art. Thou.
One the manual
deliberation of hand
and mouth spoken out
to chronicle the other —
you an extrusion true as
eon and ranges raised of
volcanic juts and not just
acrylic jane-came-lately—
plastic, fabricated, trashy.

Thou. (You. Are.) Art.
Reason to barely show
reason, to freely plump for
the provisions of each kernel
earned from your earthy
spiral permanent andante
developing over all hearts
beat helio-composed footnotes

X Butterfly

From our earliest learning
moments the telling nursery
stories for metamorphoses
were a constant theme
being so applicable to
children easy prey to
chills and winter flies
by inevitable compatriot
spring gets switched on
where caterpillars play

On branches you can’t
get off sticky and bound
fast and found quickly as
sand has to be in glass
or box we got turning
not in turn but abrupt
a flap the cat can’t catch
or sift back over the same
patch we all sat at sitting in
the wings equi-vocal drying <BR>

You don’t know how
you feel from inside this
chrysalis is suspension in
flights of apprehension
began as fantasy fancy
is the will of eyes seen
on the side all our lithe
limbs relinquish their grip
for a chance to spin and
for a spin to chance this
gravity and learn again in
levity and many blemishes
left behind die reconciled,
can be equally esteemed

XI Aurora Dancing

We had our nights outside
our share we shared care-
free in temperate evenings
evening vast distances of sky
the lights recherché and surge
cher cherie our memories become
charged as animations tumble
on that dramatic mat above

We didn’t arrive with
sufficient language this
english spun paltrily under
contrasts the horizon’s own
advent and evangelism
anointed saturated curls
of oil drops mingling in water
color beyond kit and number
nonetheless exists and us—
we christen the first verse

Chorus is repetition
of that night or dawning
doesn’t need to be material
to be real as what it lives in
your warm body, its chemical
instruction and composure
more than a sequence of steps
and sequin-eyed gazing at
night before it lifted

XII Loon

It’s more than the obvious
of the obverse of pocket post
cards or reverse of coin change
averse surly to converse
conversion of dead romans we
read about as teens romany
dreams for romantics who can’t
write home of romances yet
a romantic bent of prose
never lets on we didn’t know
more or less of amazing,
less or more of silly is
his image in his image is
my unwatered verse yours

It can be over and over
turned handed over and
rolled all the way on
the post van’s axle or
farmer’s automatic plow
grinding the ground for
another round of what
you know to be samey
until we get the urge of
coffee, poppy and leaf
to leave it out and under
once we’re over what we
synthetic and defenseless
brunt once his fun was had
the huntsman comes calling
fakely he imitates the sound
out of dual purpose flutes
first to placate and wooed
incidence with us next the pull
by both barrels well meaning end

XIII Loon

If insanity is repetition
if you elect to listen to
audible mirages wanting
unconventional resolution
of chin music within you
choose to be distant from
suggestion and command of
an otherly in your mind

Nerve ending and muscle
though receptive never
spell the word authoritarian
doesn’t embody authorship
or commend an automatic
effort extended as blood
flow or respiration their
execution is involuntary

Inspiration from the same
is the picture of sane not
as some queer duck swans
quirking on up front and edge
and backward lawn-longing for
backing from the lord that
revelation is real not to really
feel as a mind compromised

Squawk about it all you
want but you don’t but you
do want to know and be
known though need not be
by all as is our common
song haunting aired to be
fair concert becomes enough
with one concerted consort

XIV Aurora D

It is like you
it’s like you said
you don’t mind getting it
lost, your body, in advances,
in movements you like and
you liken it to love you
had, had to dismantle when
they proved not like enough to you

You fairly made it in
my sky minded admirers
and writers of dated jugate
pages subjected vulgate aims
to praise what can be dated
counted out not of a time
and precisions of feet
dances demanded of

You are a daughter of
dizzy hens and humming
men don’t let the sound of
one be confused for songs
slow build to the tumultuous
rumble of boxes on the rails
way out on the road you know
its terminus but not the onset

You take to it like mother
giddy would go about with-
out a first thought for you to
second among the many ama-
zing visions revisions move-
ments acts and a code you
know as devolution all in
from one your mind admits,
to your face limb mimic and leg
make light of their own, light, you
light alight to delight as light

XV Butterfly

A. Pillock Brig
Imprisonment is a fitting
euphemism for the eponymous
bug a bosh thug a boo straight out
of aesop and your anderson parable
don’t stop a blossom comparable
to freedom from the island
existence that has bedeviled
any isolationist revels since
the inscriptor was donne
the dunny wall inscription
read no man is an, and no
madam by clods awash can
continentally entertain and be
not less, diminished, self-less

B. Presentiment
Promontory were she
headland and heather we
predelict against monition
were swept sweeping kept
at bay any promotion of
weeping pro motion of beachy
intercessions concessions and
professions in succession she
primarily remands remains as
a glow of one by sea shows
seen not to give up the boat
rowing oak or creaking teak
belief in harbor keeping all
avid as with her we were

C. Predicament
Avast abash a-bidden bide
ridden ride amid middens in-
to me meson hidden arisen mid-
stream copernican and sea avide
with me extrapolary even-
tide high hideout on the lee
side siding of a virgin isle
while other comforts flee
we, I, depict the wind on a
whim on the wing a sigh(t) to
see Amelie and saintly makings
of a wave, a waiting to be
charted and an enslaving grace
uncharted, chanted, enchante

XVI Arnica representing Sunflowers

Flowers represent, respeak
reread re-present these flowers
bespeak a deeper meaning
than the need to turn heads
to the heat of her inferno
the sun combustible furnace
furnishes all that nourishes
waiting for so long without
visibility just like you
were moving without
spectacles at dawn

The eye the pupil who
dilates in relation to
the ambient or passing
there to claim admission
not of an engine outfitted
for neighboring war, instead
as dandelions to the wind
we shed dead by attempted

Commonplace of miracles
the trade magazine suddenly
the front and center medium
stones and vellum to tele-
gram to tweet telepathy too
sweet and she still supposes
posies spoke uncounted words

Unaccountably all we do
is alleviate anygravity
remaining, not for love of
humors but for fear of serious
minded minders minding you
rotational to the daylight
side of rational can‘t hide
night’s incontestable shelter