Taking Root
Watching the Birds
I can hardly tell
the Oriole
from the orange
he's eating,
and the lemon
breasted female
on her dish of purple
jelly— can they know
how beautiful they are?
A tuneful skirmish
when a second male
arrives—the lady flies.
Like us, these birds,
their proprietary claims,
their hot defense.
Self-aware
we feed on praise,
cunning in battle, artful
in art, arrayed in colors
alien to the brightest
bird. It may fight
its image in a glass
or hubcap; we look
in the mirror at our
own invention
and are never fooled.
My mother,
half-blind, sits in her
chair running a comb
through her snowy hair,
over and over
soothed by the motion.
She feels my gaze,
brightens with a scheme.
We can make some
money, she whispers,
we can sell our hair.
I blink, she's gone.
Does she know how
beautiful she is?
Hands Deep
Hands deep in dishwater
I gaze over the sink, out
the window dreaming
of something elusive
as the soft blip of bubbles
bursting, quiet rain
of yellow leaves from
the paper birch.
I can still see this
tree in summer green
when we sat before
the window and what
we thought was a horse
wasn't but as big as
a Percheron and all legs,
gleaming chestnut, striding
across the grass between
the window and the tree,
long ears cupped forward
roman nose and hump
at the withers
a cow moose sprung
from the woods until
she stopped on seeing
the yellow schoolbus
rattling down the road
and turned tail, floated
back to the marsh she'd
started from.
And after we'd
told our story again
and again and after we
finally stopped all these
years I still look out that
window every morning
dreaming the unexpected
not the forgotten spoon
I dredge from the bottom
of the pan but something
golden and elusive like
a wild moose I'll never
see again soundlessly
crossing our tidy lawn.