Selected Poem #11, First Quater, 2014

This is the eleventh and final poem Selected for 2014's First Quarter. We are so pleased to have this piece  from our old friend Patrick. To all our poets and friends, thank you!


Hymn to the Buddhas

Things in between, such as they are,
names trying on forms for a season,
ice dreaming of steam, birth crawling,
toddling, striding, hobbling towards death,
breath and the tides changing direction,
twilight to night, dawn to day,
the blue scrim deception hiding dark and the stars
that the sun repeatedly conjures to faintest applause,
bacteria teeming, molecules whirling, and light waves
(or particles) streaming. O where
am I gone when I'm sleeping?

(Remember the Future? The jet packs,
the monorails,
day trips to Mars,
the self-cleaning houses?)

We crumble when touched,
each a locus of fancy and countless projections,
confections of history now and when we've departed,
gone, gone, where the sun and the earth do not dance
making the clock tick
tock: the heart beat, beaten, beating sutra

(Sweet, pretty bird, your broken wing
seems such a little thing, yet
even as the cats watch waiting
and the other birds take flying for granted,
the sky reaches down to you.)

Hear: Only kindness remains.


--Patrick Mizelle