Hi,
I'm still enjoying the poem but I'm wondering about the word "atop" (it
feels kinda 19th-century-poetry to me). I know that newspapers (and not TV)
can sort of date it back in time a little but the rest of it feels up to
date. Newspapers that bray aswell... that's an amazing side-swipe...
The ending, too, is powerfully written.
Bob
> > Almost Another Birthday
> >
> > i.
> > A three-legged dog, unaware of the headlines:
> > snipers, terror watch, bombs and war,
> > unaware of falling back for daylight savings,
> > shuffles past, pauses beside a favorite tree
> > that weeps dead leaves on a cracked sidewalk.
> >
> > The spaniel doesn't remember being struck
> > by a drunk driver, the howls of pain, blood-gloved
> > hands that scooped him up and made him almost
> > whole. The dog's ways offer no complaint.
> > He treks home to dinner and warmth.
> >
> > ii.
> > Atop a cypress speared toward the heavens,
> > a crow with missing feathers and smudged
> > in soot, flaps her wings, one eye on the obscured
> > sky, one eye on the challah I've tossed
> > upon my ochre-splotched lawn. She swoops,
> > ascends, scored crumbs golden in her beak.
> >
> > iii.
> > Toward the end of my sixty-second year, I gather
> > more than crumbs, though knees sometimes groan
> > and my head storms, clamped in its vise.
> > Away from the clutter and newspapers' bray,
> > I forget about where I've been
> > and look at where I am.
> >
> > Barefoot, I listen to Chinshu, Calm Place, practice
> > pranayama, breathing, open a pathway, perform
> > asanas: mountain, tree, cobra, butterfly, warrior,
> > corpse and still the ripples, body supple, strong,
> > autumn's flame not stolen by winter's bite.
> >
> > 10/27/02
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
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