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It’s a Circular Life


It’s a big deal,

a freshman’s last final big,

this revolution back to you.


I was a prattling preteen - attention deficit;

seeking this and this and this -

forgot our heart song, mistook shadow for sound,

mistook your silence for thick soft piles of simpatico.


Absorbed by orbit, my tethers spiraled behind me.


I was a hard shelled beetle banging about a 60 watt bulb.

I called it love - seared my wings embracing a dragon;

the cavernous the air rippling about me was

full of purpose, empty of you.


I was a tick encysted for some mega-drought ahead,

conjured as if I could be Gaea, creating hunger

so I could feed it. Blood is rich but unsustaining.

I tasted iron on my tongue and stuck it out.


I greeted my revolution; tasted its bitterness for catharsis,

how it hates the long view, how it longs for the slow turns

that wring out fog and blizzards – how it prefers

the incremental procession of heartbeats about an axis.


how it baits me with breadcrumbs to trail you

over the frozen surface of our winter garden,

how it feasts with the titmouse and chickadee

on the seeds of our harvest.


I am a horseshoe magnet growing fuzzy with metal filings.

I quiver, they accrete along my collarbone.

Both poles swing toward the magnetic pull of you.

It’s a big deal.


I discover in your reflection how we shine like alabaster

in a day filled with verga – I note our feet

never touch the ground, as you open me like a parachute

so I can glide in: toes splayed, seeking the green pond,

breaking the surface, coming around.


Every return holds another departure, it’s a circular life.


Again I’ll stick out my tongue to the next revolution,

we'll greet it with magic mantras.

I promise to break open if you promise to spill.


If we tether our axis, we can avoid the 60 watt bulbs;

even savor the slow procession of heartbeats

and tiny dots of snow geese flying north.



Comments

blue aisling said…
I love the images in this poem, the beetle and the magnet in particular. The magnet one is so strong it might deserve its own poem!
December 17, 2007 at 9:50 PM
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