Friday, September 14, 2012

Poem for Friday and Brookside Butterflies

Portrait
By Dan Beachy-Quick

You have to walk so close to the mirror
Before your breath clouds the image
You need to get a running start
You need to get a running start
To break through the refrain into repetition
As exile's continuous form forms the same
Words twice thrush thrush
Drab bird unseen in the dark dark's underbrush
Sung from the yeasty mouth

  *

From within the cloud the voice sings
The voice is a singing cloud
You have to walk so close to breath
Before you find the mirror
And then beginning looks just like
Beginning looks just like
What doesn't know how to complete itself
Otherwise
What is there in saying house bridge fountain

  *

bridge fountain gate jug
jug fruit-tree window there I said them
All and every all's this same
Cloud's faulty tower is this same
Cloud's broken column trying to make a point
About breath by mentioning breath
I stand so close to the surface of the thing
I am dumb because I make myself dumb
And then the apples go mute

  *

Jug jug
Make no noise
Who will find you in the middle of your breath
And keep whole all you want broken
Someone becomes
Someone again it must be done
Mouth scaring bird from its ever more hidden nest
A surface seems to know something about
Depth depth cannot know about itself

  *

Right toward the mirror
Watch it fly as sometimes it does fly
Breath and every cloud
The sky has gotten a running start
It's why the apples ripen even though they hurt
The sky's running start
Let panic return and stand very still
You have to stand very still
Before what is wounded turns around and nears

  *

A note plays in the dark
Plays all by itself in the dark just a note
Just a note called escape
What I'm telling you is what I cannot say
Otherwise this
Intimate breath is just another maze
The sun disappears
Inside the apple I mean there is a mirror
In a cloud and right there is your answer

--------

People enraged me today -- mostly online and via e-mail, but a couple in phone conversations, so I just stuck close to home and did my stuff and avoided anything having to do with the election, the Middle East, people using the Middle East to spout garbage about the election, etc.

Good news included gorgeous weather, an Orioles victory in a very long game, three bunnies in one neighbor's yard, Adam getting a pretty good mock SAT score, meh Glee, Thursday night football and half the laundry getting folded. Also, Happy Breakaway Day. Some more butterflies from Brookside Gardens last weekend:















2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Beautiful butterflies. Have a peaceful day tomorrow. No need to let the outside world disturb your peace. I was as disturbed as you today. I heard a news story on breathing...4 deep, hold, 6 slowly out....before we blow. I had to practice this on the road today. If I can stay out of the car and away from the world I am ok. Peace. gin

littlereview said...

Today was calmer, thanks! I can't even watch the news -- if it's not horror in Libya it's horror right here. I did see bunnies, though.