I was speaking, a moaning call,
a spreading gray constellation,
a smoke of words
but you weren't listening anymore.
It is the only language I have.
I live in the interstices
between seed and fruit,
seed and earth,
sea and air,
love and absence.
I have come a very long way, and yet
I am as gray and unremarkable as old lumber.
My love expresses itself inside the earth
and produces a single emissary.
The way is long, the continents pass by.
We meet again only at intervals, but on the same ground.
I was trying to tell you about moonbirds
in their secrecy and their millions.
They seem to vanish, they glide without effort,
but are always there, like love or frailty.
I was speaking, a moaning call,
a smoke of words between sea and air
but you, you love the smell of milled wood,
and weren't listening anymore.
__________
Oh wow, this is wonderful. Too many lines to quote. The depth of your work, the wonderment of your imagery, the scope of your vision, deserve a huge audience. In a just world, you would be very well known literary light.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to be looking for those moon birds now, Shay, thanking heaven there are millions of them, including me, "unremarkable as old lumber" but living
ReplyDelete"in the interstices
between seed and fruit,
seed and earth,
sea and air,
love and absence." The poetic notes you strike, the "moaning call" seems plaintive but also so strong in flight, gliding "without effort,
but are always there, like love or frailty." Fly, moonbird, fly!
A haunting piece, Shay. I love the title--it's like the flick of a skirt disappearing around a corner, luring us to follow it into the shifting thermals and soft cadences of this poem. I especially love the second and third stanzas, full of quiet colors and rich metaphor, and the fourth and last only add to the mood of that hovering sadness and a search for more that seem embodied in the birds themselves. Beautiful writing.
ReplyDelete