A time capsule of quarantine (March 2020-the following year).
More specifically, a result of listening to too much Fiona Apple.
Strange Birds
I saw a raven by my window at dawn; surely into my heart she’d be ushering hope
But she just laughed — “that’s a dove” — and dived into her downward slope
That night I thought I saw her flying, winding wisdom round the moon
But it was just a paper bag that seemed to mimic her distant croon
When we met again I asked if she followed philosophies or signs
She shook her head and said to me: “The crane fly’s presence is profound as mine.”
Then I asked her what she made of the hatter and the writing desk —
“A riddle so trivial,” she replied, “wouldn’t deem my mind a place to nest.”
So I’ve had time to think about it, watching spring unthread the winter’s woes
The raven saw it happen too: a shining sun to melt the snow
While she took life by the horns and the reigns I went to make a callous
To her a cloud would always be a cloud–to me it’d be a gleaming palace
Apple-Picking
I dreamt that a prude old snaggle-toothed dame
With a mouth as sour as the angle she acclaimed
Drew a bundle of apples from the sleeve of her coat
And asked me what I made of them
I hoped they reflected love, wisdom and growth
To which she replied, not even close
Sin would be seemly, for all apples do
Is fall off their branches and sever their stems
They roll then they rot and then they ferment
They’re parts of a cycle, not emblems or convents
She sickled the skin that had already gone bad
And my tears dropped like the fruit from its core
She made a fleeting joke out of my unease
Life is just a basket of these
So I ran away from that restraining red
I didn’t want to pick apples any more
Direction
I saw an empress—
When it rained she fluoresced
Because they didn’t want her shining in the spotlight sun
They were perturbed by her hair
The way it grew: an affair
Because theirs wasn’t coiled or coarse or skillfully spun
Her voice was resounding
They flinched at echoes rebounding
So she spoke with the pith of a wailing choir
Like an ode to shrouded gold
The shrewd bees swarmed her honey soul
Where are we going if not following her?
Autumn
This is where I want to reside
Where the fruit doesn’t bruise on autumn’s hillside
The white heat of august drains to a sable wine
And the blackbird’s coming up from the southside
The scarecrows here are just handfuls of hay
And the season will endure for months after today
Just the pumpkins are out on popular display
And the blackbird watches only tree branches sway
The leaves don’t fall if the wind doesn’t sing
The only sound provoking is the park’s creaky swing
He accepts this heaven land with a thrash of his wing
Good thing this blackbird is not a blackbird avenging
New Year
The new year with a smile and a cunning lingo
Promised her solitude and awakening soon
She took this word gladly like a baby to her chest —
— and self-rule and growth and an auspicious June
But June was adverse and October was worse
And May spoon-fed her pride and dressed her in aggression
Each quiet mouth was corrupt and silence looked like malaise
And she confused real virtue with selfish projections
Yet as she was enlightened she thought this was upstanding
Though obscurities fell from her castle in the air
They should listen to me! she shouted as she drew the door shut
And her wisdom faded to futile fragments in there
And when December came she didn’t recognize her reflection
Hatred had hardened her skin but she looked strained, not mature
She looked down from her window and realized this was all wrong
But the wronged would now take no realization from her
Cypress Trees
Whether brutally like maggots on the fronts of the pigs
Or beautifully like the sweetness of a newly ripe fig
Cypress trees hang over nearly everything
And the end is not always opposite spring
And the world to the placid seems an awful lot smaller
Yesterday she noticed the first ringing in her ears
And found conversation more difficult to revere
She’d tear up her writing at a single misprint–
And her hair now mimicked a spiderweb’s glint–
That she could have cleared when she was taller–
She gets the ladder
Rainbow Wings
In the wheat grass: a caterpillar and a mantis steadfast
Sat silently, compliantly till winter’s long nights finally passed
And when the sun came one remained complacent on the blade
And the other ventured off to find a secluded limb to claim
The caterpillar returned blithely in the second month of spring
Only this time she flew in on a pair of rainbow wings
Mantis looked at her through tired eyes and said indifferently, “You’ve changed.”
And she replied, “We’re supposed to. And you look quite the same.”
February
“Valentines break hearts and minds,” sang that old soul Mr. Prine
But she believed that all love aligned, vibrant like a trumpet vine
She hadn’t many lovers and knew not many love songs at that–
Just summers end and when seasons amend and the sweet rupture of an honest laugh
And she needed not a sailor to guide her through some amorous sea
She liked the land, feathered canyons grand, endeared by strangers’ benignity
As long as spring was kind and rivers ran high and the moon shone down on time
That’s what she’d write a love letter to, sealed and stamped and signed
Today
I know George said that “All things must pass”
And that one should involve in her life (not be attached)
But when the sun casts a vibrant arc amidst (well, the mist)
Is it something to be once adored and then promptly dismissed?
Painters do not sit with the world only if it’s changing–
(It’s regarded and it’s carried and it’s suspended in the painting)
It’s a good thing to be grounded before you get up to ascend
The spring is in no rush to arrive nor in a rush to end
There is always some odd pressure to shed, progress, renew
But by conversing with the past I feel I fuel my multitudes
So after we’ve been vessels let us sometimes be containers
Or at least, (as the saying goes),
Anyway don’t be a stranger!