poems for April 10-15

April 10:
SUN IN THE SPRING WINDOW PANE

Spiders do not lose hair, nor weave
unscripted valentines, unbirthday wishes.

What is spun in the corner , sure as sun
catching your eye, wraps what flies

in swing of silk
dance in the frame.

April 11

What we see, we have already "read" as our visual cortex filters our perceptions down through the doors of our experiences. What we read is immediately transposed perceptually to some kind of image that is compatible with our imagination.

Untitled

I read “loafers”,
and images of bread rise
in my mind and then a tramp
straight out of Frost’s mud-time,
with worn out shoes
the kind with those empty eyes
where pennies are supposed to go;
I am aching
to know if he tossed it
and what kind of wish
he knew

April 12:
(hommage to Abby for the Avocado)
type and tap to tip and tape
as words escape, escape,
scrape below the seascape

and find a story about an avocado
and remember
that this strange
wrinkled testicle of the earth
contains a pit and how countless
trees sprout for the children waiting
to see it split, upward thrust
and snaggle of roots
ready to plant,
for a deeper scrape

April 13
(preamble to poem)
Parable of the Squash and the Tree – From Nasir Khusraw
Have you heard? A squash vine grew beneath a towering tree.
In only twenty days it grew and spread and put forth fruit.
Of the tree it asked: "How old are you? How many years?"
Replied the tree: "Two hundred it would be, and surely more."
The squash laughed and said: "Look, in twenty days, I've done
More than you; tell me, why are you so slow?"
The tree responded: "O little Squash, today is not the day
of reckoning between the two of us.
"Tomorrow, when winds of autumn howl down on you and me,
then shall it be known for sure which one of us is the most resilient!"

**
(My poem below)

A Thousand Years Later

Compare? You and me?
Today is not the best day.

I will practice the 200 year old tree’s reply
should a squash should peer up after the task
of rushing from seed to fruit in 20 days, then ask
What is your slowness caused by?

The rudeness of such a brash remark
is best kindly steered to a kinder mark.

Let squash be squash.
Let oystered shell cloister a pearl.
What remains? Remains.

April 14

Marmeladov’s Loneliness

Did you hear about his oldest daughter, Sonia,
the crying of the half siblings,
the illness of her step-mother,
and how she went out one night at 6 o’clock and returned at 9
and laid 30 roubles in front of Katerina Ivanovna

and without a word, picked up
the green shawl,
put it over her head,
her face to the wall
her shoulders shuddering
her body shuddering

and in that silence Katerina went to her, knelt and kissed her feet
and would not get up, and they fell asleep in each other’s arms.

What if she had understood there is good in the worst of us
and how he suffered so, drinking up her clothing
crying out that she understand his stupor
the only way he knew how to suffer twice as much.

What if we understood that?

April 15

One spring day, many years ago,
scent of loneliness, in the woods,
apple blossoms
a fleet of white caps
shredding into the air.

And today, I join the blackbird to look
towards the woods, watch snow
blossom by the birch.

There on the honeywheat stalk of grass
the redwing ratchets – then stills
no commentary
on snowy blossom, sliding off the branches.

Silence and a bird swaying.
Drift of spring curling,
repeating.