Brush

This is not as it is, nor was — I will tell you,
but neither is here, firstmost — secondly
drained, the oils are trapped and iridescent,
capped off, refracted. I cannot know this.
I cannot hurl a spear and hope to skew
a finch. A grackle’s slick is not to its own,
but my own bobbing neck in a fleck of light,
lowdown in the grasses — down there,
industrious, those weeds and what feeds
among them — gods with their many eyes.
To see as they, must not be liberation —
To feed as they, suffered as undergone,
that too is not present. No sunstroke
to wail upon. No earthmother to grip
as a deaf child may — to turn again
to those former selves and selvaged —
as oft we do, the advisement runs.

A stone thrown into a waterfall makes
no ripple they say, a plunk subsumed
in a chorus of naughts, the laughter
of plunging, bottombound — unhurried,
gravitas. There are no wings to curse
the fall — no wind, no stone, no skin.
The word then is a verb and simply, and
now then, is a lea.

A petal broke from the apple bloom,
and lightly cruelled my cheek.

Image: Xuan Nguyen on Unsplash