It would be a simple thing
to gather words like coil,
gyre and cusp; like instinct
and flicker; like copper, kettle
and dark—pinioned flight, there
above the sun’s low fleck.
Not so simple then to stir
hawks from summer’s leather
gloves, to foist upon my eyes
the abolition of solitude, if only
for a time. Not so simple then
to rise from my hatreds as they
From their hunts and gather
there upon a vast plate of heat,
shimmered as if thrown into
the sky by my autumn
yellow fist and wait, circle
and coil, wait, circle and plume
Until the last of them and these
— my rapacities quiver once
on the wind and move off,
silent, imperceptible — leaving me:
both junco and squirrel, both
walnut and winter’s lean den.
Image: Peppe Ragusa on Unsplash
Sweet and Bitter Greens 