Month: August 2019

I’m settled into August
with its warm softness
watching the molting goldfinches
who gather on the upturned faces
of my ripening sunflowers
maybe they feel a kinship
with the golden petals
mistaking them for wings
sprouting from the ground
folded over a treasure of seed

maybe it feels like returning
to that first nest
where dandelion-bright plumage
and open beaks
meant they were home

now they cling to the nyjer feeder
while bumblebee wings
slowly lose their gleam
and September inches closer
with its crisp, harvest moon

it started with a yellowing
as if sunlight exploded from hollow bones
to shine and shine and shine
until we slide past midsummer
into the inevitable twilight
and the goldfinches began to turn
the color of desert sand

I recognize the shape of it, having balanced
its shifting weight for as long as forever
still, I don’t always see it coming
even when the shadows fall
over the vivid bright of summer, darkening
the colors, stretching itself
until
all that’s left is distortion
and this ruins the fun, you see,
it unravels all the good intentions

But, also, guilt can feel empty, a void
blossoming up around me
like some scentless, colorless flower
siphoning my joy because the weight of it
never changes or the cold, flat truth
like dull iron, nonreflective
I smell the metal
it has the faintest taste of blood
coppery with rust
blackened around the edges
oxidized yellow, festering

the wound is septic

the rot’s a living thing

it smells sweet and bitter
like cinnamon but flat, acrid
as if the promise of sweetness
was suddenly broken
and I’m left gagging, shocked
that the flavor’s all wrong
lost again, groping
at edges, indistinct
blurred together in a whirl of motion
all confusion and reflection and nonsense

it looks like the sky
shining up from wet pavement
obscuring where the ground
begins and ends
it’s all middle
I long for a marker
but the path is lost in monochromes

it sounds like the sharp drum
of a woodpecker
against the Ash tree
that died five years ago
the one that’s green and alive
in all the old photos
but now stands leafless in August
as Trumpet vine climbs
the skeletal canopy
the epitome of opportunistic need

I was unaware
that the pull of galaxies
could affect me,
possessing an arrogance
that made puppet masters laugh

but the truth can be impossible
my lack of purpose, deafening
I thought I was headed
towards a perfect dream
where the ending
looked exactly as planned
a happy fantasy, until
the planets moved from east to west
and it all fell apart

Mercury slid backwards
pulling the illusion
from the skin of my consciousness
and reality flickered
just at the periphery
prompting a deep foreboding
of myself, trapped beneath
a shadow far too large to see