What a perfect make: bones of palisander,
freshness and crystal grain: veins
of blue lagoon, spring equinox
and tufts of violets; lungs of prana,
pine shoot and Mahayna; a heart hypericum,
tiger and galactic swirl; stomach of
millrace, shade of Walnut
and Swan Lake; kidneys of basil,
baby step and clustered grape;
bladder of boat sails,
vowels and acrobatics; a spleen of shuttle,
loom and rug laid out in the sun;
blood of butterflies, frescoes and fire;
nerves of dawn, art
and pristine words; nails of fish scales,
roaming and joys; a tongue of seashell belt,
Quipu knots and wine;
hair of celebration, storm
and lightning tenderness; a nose of horse tack,
hegemony and distinguishing marks;
breasts of Saturn’s rings,
ripples and imagination;
teeth of Stradivarius, sounders
and rapids; a skin of music,
willow wands and myth;
eyebrows of nobility,
masterpiece and insouciance;
soles of berry cobbler,
Master’s degrees and ascendancy;
a brain of rain clouds, Stonehenge,
and reflectors; lips of myrrh,
forest path and First Cause
expansion; eyes of migrating birds,
calendars and lofty parades;
ears of yarn, concertinas
and Golden ratios… What a perfect make!
But how stupidly it works – like a toaster,
Except it always burns the toast.
Let the song speak:
a rainy, fishscale song
in this pre-Columbian spring.
I forget the clock, the coffee maker,
the tax inspector;
I paint a cloud on the day’s kimono,
shamelessly mimicking Hokusai
for the homeless cat,
its back arched like a tsunami
over the long night;
with a stick of poplar I touch
the seeds of the air
and shake hands
with cold-numbed crickets.
Cheers to dreams
and the Bulgarian chiefs
in 2000 BC.
Cheers to the manuscripts
of Alexandria
to the oracle of Delphi
to Giorgione and Copernicus.
Cheers to Bayan the Mage
to Pearl Jam
and Mary Poppins.
Cheers to the month of August
to the snowman
to the leopard.
My memory of civilisation
descends the Himalayas
and slowly climbs up the Balkans
where, among the wild irises,
my voice lives – miraculously.
On each side, the Black and the White
Seas like the wings of a stork
in this pre-Columbian spring.
As this thing, sweeping through
blackthorn night
through clouds, through
lightning forks of lilacs, and rain
reaped like wheat;
as these things awakening the drowsy grass,
reviving the body of the river
with earring of silver flicker
sunk into the depths of summer;
as gondolas of leaves
carried by wind;
as algebraic equation
proving strawberry’s infinite taste;
as totem in town square
surrounded by neon lights;
as a horse of brilliant coat, nibbling
the edges of sunset;
as someone who no longer speaks,
because life has become wide enough for silence
and as no one and nothing – here is my hand,
here the stars
the vines, the thunder
here is everything
every button, every hair, every dizzily spinning thing –
the moment will leave a smoke trail:
a sure sign
that the world has no end.
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