O Cricket Intermittent

O cricket in the bedroom curtains

Somewhere, somehow

Visibly undetectable

You chirp for a love you cannot find

Unless you let me put you outside,

And yet you hide.

O cricket intermittent, not to be found 

Are you in the valance? On the ground?

I give up, accept your presence.

You chirp-chirpcha-chirp-chirpcha-chirp

then rest

then chirpcha-chirp some more

For nights, 

I wonder about your lifespan,

drift off to sleep.

Nights later, I stop

In a spot where I don’t usually linger

But instinct’s eye catches your motion—

Jump I cover you with a glass no

Jump I capture you with a glass no

Determined so, hunter human focused and keen

Jump covered! Captured, unlikely, unawares,

I carry you swiftly down the stairs 

Open the door to the summer night’s air,

Deposit you in the klanchoe

No longer lost, you will find

Your destiny.

Chirp. Chirpcha-chirp-chirpcha-chirp,

Chirp.

Chirps

On the other side of an office wall,

a conference call. 

I can't discern the discussion but

a high-pitched voice through the speakerphone sounds like birds chirping, which made me think: 

how much message is actually in a bird chirp?

Which led to this:

Sophisticated birds, migrating, communicating, tuned in to Magnetic North, and the other animals - all Nature in balance;

Humans are the only ones so destructive we could ruin the whole thing for everybody.

We think we are so smart but what if

All Nature's creatures have found the balances to strike

and we're the last

to get 

the memo?

—From July, 2019

Atmospheric Conditions, Spring 2020

Driving west to beat a curfew

just declared an hour ago

the pre-sunset sunlight shaping shadows on clouds over distant hills

and maybe the ocean.

On the radio reports of protest

and agitators

reiterations of how peaceful the protests were at the start

how interlopers come for their own reasons to make a fight and skew the focus

how we mustn’t lose sight of the cause.

And those clouds coming in from gathering over the sea

absorbing molecules of skyward mists.

May 30, 2020

My Other Aunt

I once had an aunt who I barely knew.

She came to visit the family when I was quite small.

I'm not really sure how old I was then,

But to me she was up there, and really quite tall.

She stood by the table, having dug in her purse

for her cigarettes and matches, and next, she breathed in.

I looked right straight up at her, and then saw the marvel:

Smoke blew from her nose like she was some kind of dragon!

And I learned something special, that one unnamed day,

That when I'd get older, and age came into play,

I would need to develop some smart beauty skills

Because one day, like her, I might have hairy nostrils!

Lay Low, Humans

Breezes in grasses,

Birds singing—

It has always been like this.

It doesn’t need us.

It’s we who need it.

Lay low, humans.

Quiet down.

—April, 2018

Astronomical Dawn

This morning I happened to get up at the astronomical dawn.

Crisp, cold and windy outside, 

warm and quite comfortable inside.

Looking out the window to the eastern sky,

I saw a light so bright, 

I couldn’t tell if it was an approaching jet. Was it moving?

Concentrating,

no, not moving.

But it’s too big to be Venus.

Like four times bigger!

Maybe it’s a comet? 

(No, If it were, somebody would have said something by now.) 

Must be a vision blur distortion.

So I washed my face,

brushed my teeth,

then looked again as the pink and blue dawn tempered the brilliance:

Now I see, yes, it’s Venus.

…The planet of Love.

So showy.

So many promises.

Literature, meet Science:

Sulfurous gasses.

Shining so beautiful.

(02/02/2022)

Modified Yoga

While kind of like

balancing on one foot

aspiring to be

steady as a tree

(oak or palm

depending on the weather)

even with eyes closed,

to be that certain

unquestionably

I really have no desire

to

sta

nd

on

m

y 

head.

-2016