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She chooses patterns She cuts cloth She wields her needle She bastes the hem. Time goes by The wind picks up The scissors rust The doorstep crumbles Her hands ache Her eyes are shaded Her wrinkles pucker Her hair grows long The foot is cut The thumb is pricked The glass is rising The needle falls. posted by Reen at 6:13 AM | link| versify 0 comments
His hands have the luminous transparency of some old hands, like vellum, and softly wrinkled, blue veins rolling under sallow skin, a chafed gold ring on his far finger. He drops seeds for birds, the small park sparrows with their nervous fretting against the backdrop of grass and gravel, quick eyes and cocked heads. The scene they set both wry and lordly, at once confused, material, busy, like the climax of a French comedy. Moliere, Voltaire with vellumed hands, calling the places of these airy aristocrats, now freed of dignity, and caviling in the golden rain of seed--and aren't they funny? No funnier than anyone who gets what they need. posted by Reen at 6:11 AM | link| versify 0 comments
Three early roses and a nightingale Scene threaded out in tapestry A needle idle in twilight. And where will I find you growing? The sun questions; the seed answers Unfurling from any soil, Slight flag among rocks or pastures. And where will I find you singing? The wind questions; the bird answers Unfurling from any nest, A banner over chimneys and rose bushes, marking out the tapestry. And Where will we find it hanging? We answer the question: Wherever our hands can weave. Happy Ridvan, everybody! posted by Reen at 6:07 AM | link| versify 0 comments
All past and no future, or only a future as seen by the past with its rocketships and silver suits, hovercars, lyrics, forms, experiments that seem somehow more advanced than our own moving ahead by looking in a rearview, judging our position by the signals behind us. posted by Reen at 6:03 AM | link| versify 0 comments
1. The manx stepped onto the sidewalk rolling its hindquarters under and letting them fall ears pricked to the chatter of a passing squirrel. 2. As the man held his body quiet with one arm outstretched toward the cat he mewed until a new leaf fell into his hand 3. Cluctching a maple's scrawny branch with one brown paw the squirrel reached out toward an oak twig, barking below at the sunning cat posted by Reen at 6:36 AM | link| versify 0 comments
Hunched over inside the sliding plates legs curled perfectly as a gymnast and shot, as if from a cannon, by a carefuly flick across the drive and rolling down toward the gutter. You're nature's marble, a woodsmoke aggie, an active mineral, cheaply mined and spent in spinning you out of sight. posted by Reen at 6:31 AM | link| versify 0 comments
Hearts are that color, the candy ones With messages printed in chalky script, and feet in a sauna, the insides of dog's ears, babies noses, raw chicken and roses, azaleas, and saucer magnolias at the end of season. Postcard sunsets, antique china, burnt skin, yarn for booties, expectations, the candy ones, whose messages always read "what if." posted by Reen at 6:28 AM | link| versify 0 comments
Like one good measure Like a husk of corn Like a king a-courting Like a woman's scorn Like a king a-courting Like a husband's pleasure Like an eagle falling Like one good measure Like an eagle falling Like a dog to war Like a lamb to slaughter Like a winter storm Like a lamb to slaughter Like a mountain, torn Like a horse to water. Like a dog to war. Like a woman falling Like a husband's measure Like a lamb in winter Like a mountain storm. posted by Reen at 6:26 AM | link| versify 0 comments
The door swings open, a hollow wind sends papers flying, and in the light of the lone brass lamp you find your red Persian rug, with its paisley twists Covered in bluebirds eating suet seed. The car drops you off, the curving road still dusted with sand from winter plowing studded with rail spikes, each one tying the spotlight beam of a different star In Ursa Major fast to earth. The house shakes at night. Pulls loose its moorings, sculling slowly around corners, tracing an arc on the illuminated globe that haunts your desk. It lights the dark in technicolor: no path that pulls a waking map. posted by Reen at 6:20 AM | link| versify 0 comments
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