WHITE BUTTERFLY
If every butterfly were smoke, would all perception
Fall to smell? If every wing were paper-white would
All perception end in sight?
Stitch of Michelin lace or brood of Phoebus Parnassian.
This sub-arctic gossamer,
Kaleidoscopic absence absorbs alpine stonecrop
Across sage flats
Tundra
And bleeding
Hearts sate. She escapes the loose cocoon
In grass tussocks which protect.
And evaporates before a gust.
*
TO ETIENNE SILHOUETTE
The shadow machine scales
One's profile
By adjusting flame
And sitter --
A most diminutive way
Of keeping loved ones.
For without opposition
All things cease
To be
Seen. How a star collapsed
Bends light
Until invisibility
Is achieved. The shade cutter knows
This, as she reduces portrait
Into warring essence --
White against black
Absence defining shape --
The silhouette enlarged on scrim
Taunting us
Awaiting capture.
*
SWIFTS AND SWALLOWS
Sparrow-sized Swallows swoop
Insects, peck bayberries. An aberrant
Of notes and dives. Though incomplete
Breastband may confuse a Tree
Swallow with a Rough-winged,
The voice, weet, trit, weet,
Not a harsh trrit, rougher
Than the Bank Swallow's trr-tri-tri
Should clarify, for those who wish to know
The world must learn it from its detail,
Its swallowlike Swifts, with illusory wing,
Alter a twinkle and glide.
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Poetry from Web Del Sol