The Jackdaw's Nest

2/1

"Small Song: Diminishment"

The failing moon sinks beyond white pines.
Needles cross its face, tracing paths of erasure,
a web of fracturing that lessens its light
to an archipelago of sparks.

* * *

2/2

‎"Small Song: Riverlight"

Wind-scurf roughens the river,
its murky olive brightened
with lacework light,
the shadow of a swerving hawk
a momentary mute.

* * *

2/3

‎"Small Song: Caress"

Refracted through slow ripples,
slim fingers of light
brush the rounded stone.
Not even the whisper of water
disrupts the intimacy of the act.

* * *

2/4

‎"Small Song: Fanfare"

In glissandi of falling light,
forsythia trumpets "Yellow!"

* * *

2/5

"Small Song: Winterbloom"

Flat four-petalled flowers dried to fragility
cluster like a cloud of faint beige butterflies
about the end of a hydrangea stem.

* * *

2/6

‎"Small Song: Exit Ramp"

A loose queue of English plantains,
oval heads surrounded by wispy white halos,
brush against the galvanized gray sky
of the guard rail, a procession of minor saints
nodding in the wake of passing cars.

* * *

2/7

"Small Song: Remnants"

A few dried stalks of switchgrass
lean together like old gossips
sharing confidences to the end.

* * *

2/8

‎"Small Song: Perspective"

From here, one cannot tell
if three holly berries
have fallen into the snow
or three drops of blood.

* * *

2/9

"Small Song: Allure"

Three flush-cheeked Forelles,
freckled and taut to the touch,
vie for my attention
with the pale, ripe Mosel
and the firm wedge of Stilton
blue-veined as your breast.

* * *

2/10

‎"Small Song: Eschaton"

Heavy in April air,
two turkey vultures circle slowly
over the deserted church.

* * *

2/11

‎"Small Song: Foreplay"

Garlic sizzles ecstatically
in chili oil, its aroma
fully aroused by that hot embrace.

* * *

2/12

"Small Song: Resurgence"

Like scraps of ripped silk,
Japanese magnolia petals hang
limp and beige from the tips of branches;
ice crusts the bird bath, mottled
with suspended pollen.

* * *

2/13

"Small Song: Rainscape"

In damp and muted light, the bare brush stems,
an indecipherable tangle of grays and tans,
almost obscure the weathered shed
except where the mat of moss
marks the threshhold in brilliant green.

* * *

2/14

‎"Small Song: Release"

Freed by severing wind from the weight
of disregarded fruit, the arms of the pear
lift into light.

* * *

2/15

‎"Small Song: Ambiguity"

At night, this cataract
throws rainbow-hued haloes
around oncoming lights:
beauty obscures risk.

* * *

2/16

"Small Song: Tangibility"

Shadows of bare trees stripe the morning street,
their dark so dense I expect to bounce
as I drive across them, surprised as always
that the intensity of their presence
is pure absence.

* * *

2/17

‎"Small Song: Fog"

Dense mist swathes the trees,
blurring their shapes like webs
of tent caterpillars. Sound diminishes;
the call of a nearby thrush
becomes thin, distant, and solitary.

* * *

2/18

"Small Song: Thunderheads"

Bruise-hued, hydrangea heads droop
under the weight of rain. A wren,
descending to an arc of stem, dislodges
a tiny tempest, asperging the spiderwort below.

* * *

2/19

"Small Song: Flux "

Beneath the mercury streetlamp,
the pavement quivers with rain:
swift silver curves leap and flicker,
black-flecked with quick shadow.
Chiaroscuro swirls; there is only transition.

* * *

2/20

‎"Small Song: Camellia"

A hundred rusted swirls of petals
circle the bush's base, funnels
of red frost-stricken to ruin.

* * *

2/21

‎"Small Song: Silhouettes"

Unfallen sweetgum balls, seeds spent,
have darkened with rain; against the overcast,
they loom like empty worlds, dead suns,
failed Pleiades.

* * *

2/22

‎"Small Song: Duet"

The moon shatters on the pond;
its riven sparks rise and fall
with the long, slow unwinding
of a distant saxophone.

* * *

2/23

‎"Small Song: Need"

At spring's touch, the buds
of the cherry tree swell
taut and reaching, urgent
with their ache for release.

* * *

2/24

‎"Small Song: Essence"

Caraway thyme yields its scent
as freely as you
when brushed by my fingers.

* * *

2/25

‎"Small Song: Exultant"

From a crystal vase,
three stems of orange gladiolas
curve like bursting fireworks
over our bed.

* * *

2/26

‎"Small Song: Laundry"

The orb weaver's web
strung with dew
quivers to the weight
of a thousand tiny suns,
last night's stars scrubbed clean
and hung up to dry.

* * *

2/27

‎"Small Song: Duel"

Last October's maple leaves
tumble in gas-scented gusts of air
back across the property line
to where they belong because
my leafblower is bigger than yours.

* * *

2/28

‎"Small Song: Attrition"

A lone Roman hyacinth
rises from the small bulb bed,
the sole remnant
of the squirrels' winter feast.

* * *

2/29

‎"Small Song: Premonition"

A few small popcorn puffs of white
have burst from the Bradford Pear;
against the gray blur of branches
and clouds at sunrise, they almost
fluoresce, these forerunners of the bright.

* * *