Poems from Coalescence
29 ½ Days
Before consonants, before vowels,
marks on wood, on bone, on cave
walls. Petrified, fossilized, faded.
Time to forage, to fornicate,
but when to migrate, to fish,
to feast without fear of famine?
Woman carries a calendar
at center, the egg’s monthly
exit spectacular. Man cannot
bleed like this and survive.
When her flow does not
return, her belly swells.
Man searches for other signs.
The celestial count begins.
Sun scars the eyes’ acuity
and weakens them for hunting.
Hail, Moon! Your mountains
and maria marvelous to behold!
Estimate the exact day of fullness,
followed by shadow’s curve.
A reckoning, a calculus, Newton
had not yet conceived. Keep track,
carve lines. Friction sparks intelligence,
fires the mind. Millennia later
we tap words on plastic keys,
unaware of north from south,
gibbous from crescent or croissant.
We melt grandfather’s pocket watch
for gold, honor an invisible atom’s
pulse. Cesium’s ceaseless sashay.
Early Morning in Late October
I hear them first, high
away in the fog,
cacophony in crescendo.
Each unseen push of vapor
a thrust downward,
wave of wingspan, struggle
without surrender. The oaks’
burnished leaves cling
in temporary elevation, soon
to shrink, brittle and dull. Suddenly
I see them, six geese
above me. In seconds
mist masks
their diminuendo.
Has this small band fallen
behind? Or are they
the impatient ones,
urgent to reach
winter’s refuge,
wordless instinct sharp? How
we, too, often proceed
without a clear view.
How we strain to hear
our wingless souls, risk
everything in rhythms ill-rehearsed.