Hours Are Marked

Life stretches toward both horizons

The dog excitedly barks at children across the street

Wind stirs curtains, leaves

Spruce branches sway like green tentacles

Birds peel their old plumage and blow their flutes

The robin inflates its heart

Clouds coalesce and disperse like cottonwood seeds

Sky opens and closes its perforated maw

Hours are marked by color and the sun’s position

Rain falls

Horns blare

Sprouts greenly fork out of soil

Wind ebbs and flows

Flowers brighten

Each horizon darkens to be lit again

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Do You Think About…

Have you ever seen a doorknob split in two?

How does petrichor make you feel?

Do you know what petrichor is?

How many people in the world sneeze at this exact moment?

Would there be color without light?

What do birds think about?

How many ants can lift a cherry?

What’s a child’s first reaction to snow?

How many people do you know with heterochromia?

What were your great-great-great-grandfather’s last words?

What were your grandmother’s first words?

How many purses are there in Japan?

What do bees think of humans?

Who was your first hug?

All Ears

There is a certain nobility

in silence.

If one is composed,

one can slip juicier tidbits of conversation

back, into the stomach of memory.

A silent one can hear his or her house fall, and buy a new one.

A silent one can hear the animals die,

and go out and bring them in to save her family.

A silent one can hear poison

dripped into his cup.

A silent one can hear the stars falling.

                         *

There is a certain terror in silence.

In dead of hours of day,

the sound of the sinking sun

reminds the listener

that this will all end- washed out, black,

without a sun.

In the warm clutches of folds of night

a listening one has only her thoughts,

or his heart to listen to:

and the thoughts say

“you will die, you will die. This darkness

may be the last, or only thing you see,”

and the hearts says

“i am dying, i am dying. Hear how faint i am?”

                          *

Dear reader,

you are a listener.

You are also a silent one.

Everyone, occasionally, is.

Wisdom of a Wild Beast

If only I had the wisdom

of a wild beast.

I would stay away from open, offered palms,

and not listen to words sweetened by inflection.

I could smell the metallic bitterness, the buried dishonesty;

taste fear in the saltiness of sweat on the air–

as pungent as rotting meat.

Trust would have to be earned

by genuine kindness–

the warmth of a blanket, or the offering of food.

Care would have to be received

in order for affection to surface.

I would not be blinded

by human facades and false kindness.

I wouldn’t be wounded easily.

If only I had the wisdom of a wild beast,

who thrives through caution,

and is not tricked by open palms, or sweetly coated words.

My Midnight

My midnight is not black.

It is dark blue–

darkest blue, heart of the ocean.

It enfolds me.

I am robed in this shadowless

cover. We have made a covenant.

This moonless dark blue

holds me like a mother holds her child.

My nostrils prickle with scent of earth.

This is

what only I can perceive.

This sheath of dark water,

solid as air,

I move through it like cloth.

It wraps me,

claims me.

I cannot tell if my eyes are open.

It whispers they’re not.

It doesn’t matter.

Night has taken over me.

Curse

Wishing to move

with cramps in every muscle

and pain stemming

from every joint,

to speak with a tongue

overrun by idle talk

until the mouth

is dry as a carcass,

to see with eyes scarred by a forest of cataracts,

smell with a nose sheared off and clogged,

touch with doll-like skin,

and listen with lost ears,

that is the cruelest curse.

Faults in Objectivity

We could look objectively at everything,

but then the heart would remain unseen.

The fire would be doused;

the flower would droop its full and unfurled head,

there would be no crystals within the bloom,

no smiles on the petals,

no dreams in the scent.

There would be no call of the ocean,

no challenge or caress in its waves,

no luster in the sand;

there would not be temptation from the dark forest;

there would be no warnings from the wind,

or grasp to it;

there would not be hope released with the rising

of the sun, nor fertile beauty in the glow of the moon;

there would be no celebration with death.