April (e)

April (e)

Full Moon
In Memoriam N.H.

a snarl in the window screen
enough to let any insect smaller
than a moth in
bird feeder's empty
seed lies under water in buckets &
around its pole -
some scattered in the compost

list all the things to see
little differences
took place overnight
cats who came to lurk
by the patio woodpile
waiting for the birds who
won't come too wet today

I'm not taking care of anyone today
no soothing another's wild pain
today I'm writing badly with a good pen
an instrument a viewer your witness

brown dying limbs & leaves
soon enough the skeleton will be evident
washed clean by two day's rain
a prop plane passes over unseen
irrelevant to this garden & man & poem

*

how we are talking
over whiskey about our children
our last conversation
although I'm the only one who knows

our children turn us soft with hope
& that's the way we want to be
you'll never dance at your daughter's wedding
that's worse than dying
probably easy except for big pain
but to move through our time
& see those dear others appended
higgledy-piggledy to our trajectory

along the curve little stars
a birth - - a burst - - a bunch - - a blessing

*

take this game differently
enter from another angle
imagine that the white-yellow moon
stain of the water glass
acid raising up out
of the paper to ring
itself round in perfect circles

acid used to make paper
paper used to store words
words used to think differently
thinking used to even scores

Keith Kumasen Abbot