Like a star You are distant Glistening In vast darkness. I must stand still. Look up. Gaze steadily. Impossibly try to capture seconds. But memories dim This moment’s gleaming.Continue reading
Poetry
Notes on infinity
I don’t know if this is going to be a poem or article. Maybe both. I’m trying to grasp the infinite abundance of our world, our universe.
Count the pine needles
I thought of that line as I walked through the woods, looking at the yellow blanket of pine needles on the trail and under the trees. Imagine trying to count them. It made me think about the line where measurements blur into the infinite.
Look to infinity
Relentless abundance
You are standing in it
Walking on it
Throbbing with it
Infinity is the disappearing importance of measurement
Of rulers
Of defining numerals
Measure me out
a teaspoon of thyme.
But make me the same teaspoon twice
With the exact number of grains each time.
I feel like I’m capturing something that I have been after a long time. These are elusive thoughts, though, and it takes time to refine them.
Mulch
This spring I spread mulch with painterly strokes Or smeared hurriedly, abstraction in brown My canvas: Rooty humps around tree bowls Beneath blooming bush branches Along Flowering paths My palette: Earth, all the shades From mahogany to ebony. My motif: Circles and curves And deep loamy earth The contrast of browns and greens That beautifies the beautiful.
Great Pond
I am dressed for a hike in the sunlight. My gear is made for a crisp November 52 degrees. Long sleeve dry weave, Solid hiking pants.
5 minutes in it’s raining. Sure the shirt is wicking water, But it’s not made for the heavy stuff.Continue reading
Eclipse in a Dish
I watch the eclipse On a dish In the garden window. Even reflected The light stings my eyes. The water is still, Deep enough to give shape to the sun. I tap the rim and the water tilts Tipping side to side. The sun in a cradle Rocking, rippling, warped.
Meanwhile
The Spark
I picture you sitting at your desk In your room in the apartment Or maybe at a table in the corner By the window. It’s the window that’s the key. What you hear through it Will change you. Right now, you are looking at us below Through the screen Its thin metal grill Pixelates us into small boxes That disappear to your sight As you gaze through them At the people gathered on chairs and benches. At first, it's just people at a fire pit. But then a woman steps up to a microphone That you hadn’t seen before. You catch glimpses of her words Mingling with the roar of motorcycles Inarticulate distant shouting Sirens far away. The woman steps away from the mic. You expect applause, But this audience snaps its fingers. You don’t know why they do it, But it’s different And difference attracts you. You lean in closer, tilt your head, So your ear is nearly pressed to the screen Like an elderly woman Leaning into her iPhone. Still, you only hear shards of words. “The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame.” They rear in front of you, these eyes, So monstrous that they are alight with fire. They will be with you for days Lighting your way with wild rage. More snapping. A woman sits, A man rises to the microphone. He reads: “There will be time, there will be time To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; There will be time to murder and create.” Murder AND create? How can they be in the same line? Because of this, you will play with opposites for weeks. Love and hate, good and evil, pleasure and pain. Until you see the things between, The beloved, The neglected, The destroyed. You listen all night As each of us rise to read a poem. And though you can only hear pieces The words glitter Like the shattered glass necklace That littered the sidewalk On your morning walk to school Catching the first rays of sun As it rose over the skyscrapers behind you. You type the words you hear Into your phone And poems appear. Your future begins as you read them As worlds unfold Rise up Crash down Stretch before you like seas of grass, Seas of water. This night echoes into your future Until one day You have the courage to write a poem. It is about opposites. About sirens and Sirens. The kind you run from And the kind you run to, Caught by an irresistible call.Continue reading
Poetry reading
Heron
Blue Heron standing in the shallows: Stick legs Knot knees Twig toes Do you always have one leg raised Or is that the way I want to picture you? The way your body curves Into your long neck Curls into your head Pointing with your beak. Immobile elegance Poised to strike Pierce Capture Eat Immobile elegance Still Outside of time Do you always fly by yourself? You are solitary But The steady, slow wing pace Makes me think you are flying in place Makes me think you don’t know alone When you are above me You are so many things A seamless assembly of geometry Cylindrical Linear Curved Body Legs Wings Straight and curling Never bent or crooked You are dignity Except that one time: I surprise you in the small pond So close to the trail My hiker quiet feet don’t warn you Anna’s dog-pad paws hush on the packed dirt You jump up, water thunder wing crash But The trees are close around you The escape angle steep Up You labor, heavy strokes Slap the air Unsteadily ascend Somehow find a hole in the canopy Escape from me With my hand reached out toward you Trying to bring you back And It’s too late let to tell you that I love you
Too much
Boz Bozeman 