Keeping It Simple

Birdbrain
I take the bird on the woodpile,
separate it from its function, feather
by feather. I blow up its scale.
I make a whole life out of it:
everywhere I am, its sense of loitering
lights on my shoulder.
– Mary Ruefle

 

scatter

Red-leaf

Things are not
unmoving (or else what

is ing there for?)
The things once-living

fall on the never-living   
all the more movingly for the eye

that passes over them.
The wind wells up

to spill a trail
of onces off the nevers,

take opaque from eye
to mind, or near it —

every rocking takes some leaving
to a stonish spirit.
 
– Heather McHugh, ” Leaf Litter on Rock Face”

sunrise at dusk

Sunrise

Even now this landscape is assembling.
The hills darken. The oxen
sleep in their blue yoke,
the fields having been
picked clean, the sheaves
bound evenly and piled at the roadside
among cinquefoil, as the toothed moon rises:

 

This is the barrenness
of harvest or pestilence.
And the wife leaning out the window
with her hand extended, as in payment,
and the seeds
distinct, gold, calling
Come here

 

Come here, little one

 

And the soul creeps out of the tree.

 – Louise Gluck, “All Hallows” 

captures & captions

Morning-mask-sm
early morning,
still dark outside
shadows and light inside,
game face on,
and the week goes by.

Feathers-and-glass
green bottles,
gifts from friends
hold feathers of all sizes.
feathers of all sizes,
gifts from
hawk,
turkey,
bluejay,
grackle,
crow…
hold messages of love and hope and trust.

Little-pods

trees laden with fruit,
dropping
pods
nuts
seeds
to wait for Spring

Bird-and-mirror
there’s magic
here,
there,
and everywhere.

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