Loon (Alice Bea Guerin), Sonnet #602

As if lethal it’s called a “loon fallout”:

The migrating birds wing so high,

Their feathers grow heavy with ice

(Instinct won’t drive them a warmer route)

And they drop, too encumbered to fly.

Their backs are black, dotted like dice.

They aren’t able to walk on the ground.

Red eyes glare, fish-spearing beaks clack.

Their dusk-born two-note wails don’t sound. 

If rescued (which they fight), taken back

To water, they’ll drown in a small pond.

They need a quarter mile and beyond,

Wings thrashing, feet running on water,

Or they’ll stall, and all flying will falter.

Eclipse

We stood on the porch at midday

Under a canopy of leaves

As the light slowly dimmed to grey

And the air dropped ten degrees.

The wind picked up, the only sound —

The birds silenced by some command.

No shadows fell upon the ground.

For now the future had been banned.

Sentiero (“The Path” by Pierre-Auguste Renoir), Sonnet #601

No path is inarticulate,

But none reaches a point.

I walk when the day is late

And with silent steps anoint

The dusky air with thought —

Not mine, only that sought

Among the clustered leaves and vine,

Wind-rustled, indecipherable design.

I meet you coming the other way,

With black suit, cane, and bowler hat.

You bow, but have nothing to say,

Because you are neither this nor that.

I walk right through you and smile

At the path beckoning mile upon mile.

Petals

Released from the bud’s tiny fist,

Crab petals vaguely exist.

It’s not in them to resist

Their bleaching by the sun

Or the wind that makes them run

In waves along the ground.

After rain, they can be found,

Spinning pink clusters,

In swiftly emptying gutters.

The last, like a dim pulse, flutter.

This

I turn away from this —

The moment I won’t miss —

Bowed beneath the aegis

Of the blood's next beat,

Which will never repeat.

Every blink is a defeat.

Find

Mind can’t make up its mind,

Nor the wind-up clock wind,

Nor the found object find.

All comes back on its selves,

Books returned to bookshelves.

As no star eternally burns,

We find all we will learn —

We’re just one eternal return.

Word

Sound and type are blurred

And the meaning is absurd.

Because it is only one word,

We can ignore it with impunity;

To do so might be no pity.

And yet, the only of its kind,

Without it language would be blind.

I cannot easily say it;

To try would betray it.

I don’t mean as in reveal,

But to render it less real.

It lies in its tomb,

A yellowed volume.

Unearthed, it will bloom.