sw00364ut-10.3poems

The Undulant Trees



The Poet and the Words


There was a saint
who when he went out
walking through the fields
was wont to tap,
as if a tiny zepher had,
an open flower here & there
with the earth-stained
end of his cane,
and wink at them,
and at the sky
they motioned toward.




§




A Little Something


That's what it is,
waiting:

even when standing
nearly straight up;

even the body
it dangles from,
modifying;

its spirit too,
weakly smiling.

Even the mirror
seems small;

not the longing, though,
cloudy giant;

not the aurora,
solemn hope,
glimmering, resplendent!

A little something?
Everyone is.




§




Armageddon


Beauty is in the sty of the boulder,
and the oak has it reasons
the blue sky knows not of.


     *


Here and there where a pecan's branches
play each other for the summer's sun,
cobweb tents trap their leaves.

As autumn begins,
gangs of variegated brown moths
pester me on my night walks to work.


     *


On William Blake's birth date
this 1983 year of our impertinence,
the first wintering herring gull I'd this season seen
sketched a circling inspection flight.

I wanted to bash that ominous head;
yet wanted to become/ that body, that grace.




-
Brian A. J. Salchert