After rain,
the sky clears
but already
beneath
where our breath
and feet pass,
earth exhales
water that fell
back to the sky.
But that rain
falling from above
is life to trees and grass,
and flowers bloom
like colored sounds
on the ends
of playing flutes.
Thus, in turn,
pipes of scented bloom
send on the trail
of mist and cloud
their elusive breath
that fuses into breeze
until it bears wind
that brings back rain.
With noon knowledge and noon dress,
shadows, they say, grow shortest,
might even wholly wane at Equinoxes
under Libra or Aries in the tropics—
the way a soul might leave a body
yet still persist, linger
as rumor, recurring ring,
or like a name that tugs an ear.
Surely, and yet one may still ask:
in which relation to the sun,
to time, even at which hour,
at which turn of life,
mortals feel, even are, more honest,
less inclined to split who we are
under veneers and shades
emblazoning somebody else?
And as it appears to me, the hours
of the day do mirror stages of human age:
the early opening where new unknowns
beckon those alive, ready to stay curious;
then in mid-day, one begins to learn
what fatigue, along with entrées served,
and by evening, one tries to change,
catch up with what hasn't been done.
And so with evening dress and knowledge
that hearts, either jollier or melancholic,
dispense, empty into wine shops, pubs, bars—
she may sometimes take a stance,
and here much depends on whether with
or against the sunset, when words
themselves rise like easy-to-read fingers,
impressing seal, measure, on the lips.
What kingfishers snatch in that other world,
where buoyancy and gravity agreed
to wed and jointly forge a dancing flow,
they bring it up and hold it close
to their cherubic chests and thus they cut
someone’s threaded line of fate
with a peck and strike by the tip
of their bill lightened to the sun.
But what water is to those they catch
is what wings are to kingfishers,
they make them light, they let them fly
as they peek and poke into what the other
nether space jealously hoards inside—
but for me it’s poetry that helps me dance.
