A Wallace Stevens poem

is a cemetry of words

Whereways

Early in the morning
as the male black
cat with white feet
and a female cat
belonging to him
hurry down
so does the hiker

A pair of strangers

If I could rise
as high as the lamp
post I could tell
what the bird with
white underbelly
and light sandstone
feathers was

If some go far
some go high
to elude you
In sight
out of reach

Trees at Work

My tea time companion at home
an ash throated flycatcher
its voice reverberating
in the calls of its brethren
at office parking lot.

A different bird call
sent me into a slow tap dance
as my feet followed
as projection of
the birds movement on
the branches onto the
horizontal axis

A Gila Woodpecker
to keep me company
until the end of
migration.

The Golden bough

A pomegranate tree
at the bottom
of Grand Canyon

A pumpkin patch

in November.

The could have been pies
and the jack-o-lantern eyes
the brittle that
it can still be

Merwins little children

With shards dispelled
on account of a fall

landing on a carpet
not missing to
ricochet off a chair

there lay a shark
with its jaws open

Upside down a tooth
or protome of an
elephant

As a vase
it had a nice rim.

Mudra

The Antlers
uneven fingers
spread
beseech

Experiments in the lab of a surrealist

I kneel on the road
to greet a baby
and her purple animated
stuffed antelope with
caribbean hairdo.

I hope the
white truck and
its driver
take whats
left of the road.


*****************

Peeling unwieldy
layers - hard to
separate puff
pastry sheets-
from soap

Audit Earth

One morning the
post-it pad with
a curlicue P
on the white fridge
said " Audit Moon"

Lying on the floor
I caught a bit of
it at the edge
of the top of the window:
It sure is shy.

A visitor could
find the faults
on Earth
not one speck
but many Earthians.

More than four directions

It takes a breezy morning
after months of taking the
same road east
to slowly reveal some
more mountains

In the city of mountains
in every direction
each road
is a new direction.

On the ground

Flashing lights and a squeaky long alarm
Respite only when you hear
The cause for this alarm is being investigated

This continues.

The plane was delayed
maybe to not miss this show.

***************

An obnoxious sound from the intercomm
the distress of many can
be saved by one's
largesse of holding down a button.

Eustachian tubes

A child bawls
when the plane
is about to descend

I know his name
Raghav
called out to
stop him each time
he would run out of
sight

My pride in my
Eustachian tubes
took a blow
when skydiving
I thought
I would die

Fawns

are born without odor
says Elizabeth Marshall Thomas

Not odorless like
Aveeno's fragrance free
daily moisturising lotion
which has a medicinal odor.

Pure water has no taste.

*************
The Hidden Life of Deer.

In the wild

an animal
is safe
lonely