there were no more birds
in the trees—well, there were,
but every finch and sparrow
felt relief, no more
voyeurs spying
on their sunrise
serenades,
taking all the credit
for their resplendence ;
while the Cardinals
were just a baseball team
from Missouri—the Show
Me State, though there were
none to show you anything
at all, how your life has any
meaning and that its river
doesn’t snake along its path,
it doesn’t even worm,
because no one’s there to
jot down what they watch.
And time? It has no more
meaning ,
one day like another,
every mundane hour
as the last,
no metaphors
in your lunch,
no shadows
at your side
in the noonday
light ;
if fact, no one’s
there to give a flying
fuck—strike that—
fucks cannot fly,
unless they’re birds
of course, making sultry
love
in the morning sky,
the one the
clouds
can’t be bothered
to deface,
and whether there is
rain it matters not,
because no one really
cared—
during all the times
we made it beautiful—
an April flower
here
and a child
beneath its shower
throwing the shield
of her umbrella
to the wind,
leaping puddle-
to-puddle
like a frog
upon the lilies
of a sheen,
one that Basho would have
ignored—had he marched
along the pond
with fellow bards,
picketing every
splash
with empty placards,
refusing to write a
word without a contract,
the one in which
you agree to blubber
madly—
upon every pithy image
like never before.
Andreas Gripp
November 24, 2024
RF Image
Comments