It's Not About Robins

The hawks are happy today

they open their wings to encompass the sky
shifting so I see all their brown feathers,
spread to grasp every warm updraft
they create a tunnel in this spring air

I am happy today
to see them spin in
wide white circles
To know they spin up
to bring the warmth out of the earth
and twist down to drawn down the sun
their catabasis is what renews me today

But I wonder, as I sit in my car
will they climb higher
dare the sun in his sky
and come together
Will they clasp their claws
extend their legs towards one another
And tumble earthwards
Will they spin into one form
of feathers, talons and sun
Will they risk each other’s life
in the decent
Will the earth be soft and kind
if both are unwilling to separate.

For now they will turn
in a column of their own creation
Please bring back the spring
with the sun and earth.

The Metaphysics of Breakfast: Coffee and Milk

Coffee belongs to earth,

It is first a tree,

then a nut,

then roasted,
over the bodies of more trees.

Finally, it is ground,

into dirt.

And smells like earth, and leather, and musk.

Milk belongs to the sky.

It comes from a beast,

painted with images of impressionist clouds.

It is pulled down and down and down,

hitting pails of metal,

like rain on a roof.

It has no scent,

unless sour.

It is white like the sky and cream

shifts through it like sylphs.

When coffee meets milk.

Poured so slowly,

it is a great conception.

White meeting black

Bold finding sweetness

Swirling together in cups,

which are memories embodied.

And together they soften, and

make bearable the passage,

of earth meeting sky.

Reality Check

I need a reality check,

    a list of what is real,
    and where it is placed.
A diagnostic for life,
    these moments
    their coordinates in space/time

the air temperature and pressure,
the phase of the moon
the dimensions of a 5 bedroom town home.
the velocity of muscles reaching for jam.
the decibel level of a bus at 7:44 am
the parameters for programming alarm clock

What is the length of space between here
    and where I am going?
How long will it take to get there when caring
    1K + 85K + dreams?
Will I have enough liters of fuel to get there,
    if I don’t calculate in every variable?

What do we do with ‘matter out of place’
Do we right it and call it good.
Give it the blessing and go to sleep
Is it forever out of place,
calculable but always in a different place
moved for the moment and knowing
energy can never be created or destroyed

only transferred (perpetual motion)
And hair brushed once will have to brushed again
and muscles stretched, toned, torn,
will have to be worked again, and again, and again
until the heat death of this body in
two thousand seventy something.

[November 2011]