The Aerodynamics Of Rapture

[Norma photo: same doves again, with mother]


Life is a moment
To moment proposition.
Even infant doves
Look lived-in by and by.
Rapture is, for me,
Deferred by imperfection,
But doves, doves
Can fly! I walk
In late spring heat.
Shoes, feeling rather
Full of feet, are
Left on lawn.
I have not gone,
Ascended, only forgotten.
Watch the doves,
And could you bring
My shoes in?

Losing Self-Evidence

[Norma Photo]

There is a geometry
To everything we see,
Which --if we solve for
Angles and drift--
Slides, shifts, dissolves,
Is lost to eucalyptus,
Roofs, orchards and
Sunny yellow fields
Before we wake in what
Our calculations yield.

The Aerodynamics Of Mothers

[Norma photo:infant doves]

Red-tailed hawk cleaves
A cyclone of swallows,
Climbs, reading the
Ripples of her shadow.
Bushtits snap in thickets.
Mocker recites its
Catalogue of crows, cats,
Crickets, for all who need
Know and, below in ivy,
A gray dove sits
For her photograph.
Fear though, when the
Camera nears, sends her
Clear of the nest
To land nearby.
"Here am I," she
Says silently.
"Leave them, chase me."

Portable Parabolic

[Norma photo]



Not so much memory
Or destination or
Station stagnant
In a poem --what
Is home but finding
Our place in
The journey?
Moved among moving
Stars, a trajectory,
We become.

Sometimes

Parfois,
Il est bon de sortir
De ma propre
Langue, agenouillez à un
Perspective imparfaite
Grâce à un trou de serrure.
Dans sa minuscule laiton liés
Lumière je etude devenir
Un imbécile.
Bon!

Shower O Joyous Spring!

First raindrops
Spread upon pavement,
Meet, flow, swirl in
Gutters to gurgling grates
Where heat goes, trapped,
And something underneath
Waits as steam in
Darkened air
Revolves and glistens.
Something quite impossible,
Balled in fear,
Listens to what it
Can't understand in
A world it doesn't know,
Then sleeps.
With monsters it is
Always so: we form
Deep beneath the light,
Then grow.

Scene From La Belle Dame Sans Merci Cafe

Je t'aime.
J'aime tout au sujet de vous,
Même votre rejet de moi.
Nous sommes parfaitement assortis.
Au revoir!
La femme inspecte la chaise,
Maintenant vide:
Serveur, un autre!