1. Ping Me
for Shoshi
Now we can
calculate precisely
how lost we are:
30
satellites triangulate the globe
in
2-meter segments.
Bluetooth
beacons
track
us in aisle 11.
Alerts,
in silver and amber, beckon
the
dispossessed and disoriented.
600
million computers call
an
empty field in Kansas, home.
For those still
brave
enough to love,
listen to gray
tree frogs
chirping in the
bare magnolia.
Follow their
songs deep
into the
uncharted night.
Note: MaxMind, the largest database of computer IP addresses, assigns every computer without a specific street address to the Taylor Farm in rural Kansas.
2. April
The sudden gust
and roar
of a thunderstorm
blows
like the world
will end.
But, of course,
it doesn’t.
Spring spreads,
unmanageable as
mint.
3. Ode to a Moon Cactus
O Cactus,
you’re running
crazy
no longer
eclipsed
by that gaudy red
leech of a ball
you shouldered so
submissively
so willingly.
Just look at you spill
branches, angled
and askew, your sense
of duty and
balance fleeing.
Out from under a
world of burden
what would I do
but wander
barefoot
in golden
orchards of the sun
and pick. . . at last. . .
perfect apples by
the dozen.
4. Nest Building
The first few
years, mud and struggle
filled our yard.
Longing for birdsong,
you played tapes
of songbirds,
and kept a cage
of finches.
Now, magnetite,
DNA, scent, and star,
faithfully guide
our sparrows.
Flitting
darting
from
sycamore
to cherry
to
deck,
back
they
gather up bits of
chickweed,
oak twig, twine,
cedar scrap,
grass, and bark,
constructing yet
another nest
under the
retracted awning,
and the air sings
crescendos of
lilting reassurance
that biology and
fate
will lift us
homeward.
5. Song
I reread a poem
of mine,
and the word
“song”
had been replaced
by two
mathematical signs:
≥ ÷
I smiled, knowing
song
is at least as great
as division.
Was the change
through luck,
accident, a power
surge,
or through
transmutation
like Aristotle’s
redstarts into robins
each winter?
I have no
explanation.
Even under
intense observation,
change can be a
haphazard thing.
What can explain
the urgency of a
rose;
its unifying
sweetness
proliferating
through the air?
6. The Connected Life
Sweet sugar snap
peas,
your tough strand
of bitterness
binds you
together.
7. Highway Exit with Fields
Years
before we moved here,
you
wondered why anyone would.
That
was long before we saw
what
grows on fallowed farmland.
Normally,
we
just drive by places like this—
never
stopping to learn
how
spring ripens a rippling field of hay,
how
to see past the first few
rows
of corn, deep in idling summer,
or
witnessing the inexorable creep
of
house, school, and shopping center—
until
the nature of nature
wholly
escapes us.
Then,
last week
a
double-rainbow bloomed,
vibrating
rain and light.
As
if two weren't enough,
I
imagined a third
intersecting
arc.
The
world stands before us, ready
to
scatter its everyday revelations
in
wavelengths—distinct and shining—
at
the exit up ahead.
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