Isn’t it true,
that Sandra calling “Haydar!…Haydar!…”
is even better
than the plump grey cat
waddling through the alley
earnestly marching home?
You and I are desperately complicated.
More complex than the center of the furthest star,
which is, after all, simply radiation and gas.
No, my darling,
you are an infinitely complex array of matter
liquid, solid, and gas,
permeated by electromagnetic charges and ion exchanges,
all in a frenzy of continuous activity and self replication.
Most fantastically, this jumble of matter organizes itself into someone called
“you,” you know, the only you there is.
You know who you are, and you are absolutely unique in
your solitary place of time and space.
But even more fantastic, is that this one here, called I,
a similarly unusual grouping of macromolecules
locked in their struggle of replication and decay,
sees you.
I see you,
and dream of you,
and am drawn by your charge.
But what I want to know is,
do you exert some kind of gravitational pull, as well?
You have no moon, and don’t need one.
Because in your dark moonless nights my body sleeps,
while my mind lays awake with you inside it
and me
i spin around.
The moon is back,
and I saw a whole clan of white-tailed deer
scoot through a finger in the clearing between the oaks and pines
up by Granite Spring.
Should I take this as some kind of speckled fecund sign?
As an ornament on a dazzling crown of green prosperity?
Or was it just a hungry family crossing from wood to wood?
Come on now.
Let’s go soak in the sulfurous water.
Let us bathe, if you so desire,
and forget such unanswerable questions.
the spring holiday was nearly upon us
new buds marked the azaela and beech
while on the porch, in the last rays of dusky sunlight,
you sat, crosslegged, hands in a frenzy
slipping little yellow beads onto thread
with a fine silver clasp at the end
a vintage necklace,
a gift for a dear friend.
swifter, far swifter,
than those hands working
are the synapses of nerves
found in the brain
that struggle with this enemy
who chases me now
in the bright rays of yellow sun shine
and in the cool shade of blue moon time
isnt it true
that sandra imitating the bengal cat trotting
is even more adorable
than the trotting bengal cat
…Why do you think the earth keeps turning ?
For what reason do you think the moon falls every night into the sea?
Isn’t it so he and I can see each other again?
O! Is that the warbler in the tree!
But what can he tell me I don’t already know?
Isn’t he just wasting his time?
if only i could cover my head like a monk
and walk slowly, eyes to the ground.
but the little birds are so foolish:
they scatter in the crowns of palms and pines
and chirp and chirp
over and over
just because the air smells like rain,
just because the moon’s bright lover returns from his dreams again.
They say from repetition even donkeys can learn,
Who, it is claimed, lack the brains of cats or dogs or crows.
Then what about me, Lord?
When this heart that turns over and over
Can learn to remember
But not to forget,
Me, Lord?
What happens to me?
What happens to me?
