Flying
backwards
I.
Along the estuary
pelicans fly as hard as they
can against a current rising
to gust strong winds. Wings
flapping against the ether to the
rhythm of the windswept water
headed west for the ocean but
forced further east by the gales. We
are walking huddled against them,
sensing something greater and good.
They are loosing sky, looking
so Kubrick against the cumulous,
facing forward but carried farther back,
seen so up close from the jetty, so
classically confounding
in everyday activity.
II.
Time drips over the bluff. Notice
I wanted to drive you home, tap
your imagination like maple runs in
winter, buoy your neck in my
palms, stretch you taller, wrap
you in reverb and feed
your root to my poem.
peggydobreer
10/06/07
eclipse1
on the ledge
of
an
eclipse
the
slow evolution of night
half
dark from sleep half
awake for the spectacle
it's a little bit historical
almost out of real time
as if for no
better reason
than
to sit inside this rhyme
II. lunar
memory
calls
ink to sand
lights
the morning road
Oh, India
I have listened to George Harrison
chanting in Sanskrit, until
a wanderlust for Gujurat
pounces on me like a
loose litter of lion cubs.
I am simultaneous: smitten
and stricken, enamored and
terrified. I am walking
through intentions of
passport acquisition and
frequent flyer 's remorse.
I was once a tiny monk,
maybe eight lives old.
I was wrapped in mango robes,
freshly spun from my mother's loom.
I was walking contemplation, a
view from the eyes in the back of his
head, always looking in, unless and
until, looking through.
I was once a black-haired woman,
bent at the well for water. Mustard
flowers surrounded her head
their bounty held the threads
of her shawl mended together. The
colors illuminated her poverty.
I was once the vessel she held,
the one that gathered the water. Om
Asato Maa Sadgamaya ll Om shantih:
shantih: shantih: ll She was re
freshment near the banks of the
Ganges, I was that old tin can.
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