Starved; Lamp
Starved
Just one dipper would be enough perhaps,
doused and prodding into the cold wet
underworld. A bird my family’s never known
at work in its shaded stream of simple feeding.
What begins as moving shadow or flickered dark,
is realized in an act so crisp and lasting,
the end result is being satisfied.
Once I watched a dipper feed in rain, all adazzle
and yet instilled with calm. The drops hit ground,
bounced back, the dipper dipped,
the regulated knee-bend in between,
the land living, and water lulling us along.
In this world made up of hunger and of seeking
a quiet luck to see a bird for what it is.
Lamp
The sky swims around the daylight moon,
a kind of kindness in the blue.
The moon darkens my fingers into plum
while yellow birds dart down here
and a girl spins dizzy on a swing.
The moon, a small magnificence
that fades into its quiet side.
My hands alive so long now with recycled pain,
the stale breeze settled in my face.
The daylight moon stirs a kind of sense
that’s sufficient for the day,
like the one good eye that though forgotten
outlasts trouble and saves us
from seeing what we’d planned.