under the canopy

beyond the trees, protected from the clock of autumn sun, ferns yet persist as yellow.

they shine out at me with a canary's pulse. something in me shines back at them in return, glistening, ambrosial, accruing, and common like honey.

the distance between all things narrows.

time and consequence, nest

 Life Draws a Tree by Roberto Juarroz (translated by W. S. Merwin)

Life draws a tree
and death draws another one.
Life draws a nest
and death copies it.
Life draws a bird
to live in the nest
and right away death
draws another bird.
A hand that draws nothing
wanders among the drawings
and at times moves one of them.
For example:
a bird of life
occupies death's nest
on the tree that life drew.
Other times
the hand that draws nothing
blots out one drawing of the series.
For example:
the tree of death
holds the nest of death,
but there's no bird in it.
And other times
the hand that draws nothing
itself changes
into an extra image
in the shape of the bird,
in the shape of a tree,
in the shape of a nest.
And then, only then,
nothing's missing and nothing's left over.
For example:
two birds
occupy life's nest
in death's tree.
Or life's tree
holds two nests
with only one bird in them.
Or a single bird
lives in the one nest
on the tree of life
and the tree of death.

sentinels

between two points

Summer Crosses The Water

First she is a far ways off
and it takes a good long while to focus,
to understand what's coming into view,
what's located like a dot between those two
anchored and distant islands.

Then she's in front of you, a boat,
filled with sundries and ice-cubed sodas
and women with thin straps coddling
off their shoulders, soft skinned, and thwack -
a stinging unrestful zestful desire, slipping,
slipping, slipping effortlessly through azure water.

Then she's advanced (holy hell, were you asleep?),
the hollowed hull of a cargo ship,
a sepulcher you can't hold or reach,
slipping, slipping, slipping again
around the harbour's bluff,
an empty drum, a lost host, a wraith.