Disclosing Green
It starts in March
when twisted lilacs blink into bloom
when Magnolia buds light up like bulbs
and I succumb
to a flutter possessing my left eye
as it becomes a butterfly
alighting from a leaf.
I set out,
hand in hand with your absence,
to where the dryness creaks with heat
and the obelisk waits;
dead pendulum
inscribed with dates.
We submerge ourselves in deeply rooted patterns,
smudge our outline
into the withered blooms of June.
*
Even when the sky is cold
and the slopes have drained to floods
we are out here amongst the chestnut husks
and lovers
where the heart of it
is wintering
beneath the earth’s curve.
Not so far away, we hear
the metal revolution
swinging on its hinges,
coming loose.
A flag of crow
black as a hole in daylight,
shakes out its wings,
flaps off across the water.
Shoaling between us
our deepest pauses -
hauled from beneath the lake’s mirror ambition -
translate all that we have left unsaid.
*
Finally, as the day dissolves
the scent of forest opens evening
like a drawer
and we squander our secrets
to the chorus of night.
Bright fireworks startle us
on the city’s border -
they hammer our hearts to the sky
in a burst of sparks
that shower the earth like shattered glass
then disperse like rain
or love.
Night rubs its palm across the earth
and scatters birds
against the faint remaining light.
(What takes off in a wing beat
is lost forever.)
We are missing.
The city wants us back
where language glazes streets with cautious windows
where vacant words are cluttered
through letter boxes.
Our dreams can offer us no refuge
and leave us exhausted.
I wake in layers;
each false performance dawning within the next.
Another day,
another dream,
once again
the lilacs are disclosing green.
© Poeticadia 2012
