Near Song

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“The music is good and, each his own, all will make my song more pleasant.”
—Jaufra Rudel

I

Matinal

Imagine there is nothing
to be made up
for in the morning

“Some birds are poets”
good mentors singing
the imagination lonely

mindful freedom enduring
garden trouvaille o see
this my green author

how rapidly new
flowers today cinquefoils
the gods are

II

Noontide

outside the office
building amid the
countless passing

lantana leaves my
daughter sees
motion, a mantis

clutching a moth
aflutter and is happy
for the mantis

minutes later our
business done and
passing back

the other way
she finds the
mantis but no moth

and is happy for
the moth. “Look
closely, that is all.”

III

Dusk

From the Old English
dox, the time just before

I know more about
horses than heaven

“‘a brass band
with wings on it”

what line of force?
and if unwitnessed

what arrogance? Or in
the words of others

what unseen acre
ventured upon

a portable Everest
incriminate when

fin carved firmament
downward to flame

the vole owns the thunder
the earwig and ant

“There is poetry as soon as
we realize that

we possess nothing.”