Aerial Posture
By Joshua Lickteig
O those humming birds’ dharmas
each day with attention new to
layers of the canopy,
Green plumages of the crown
near motionless all the while
remarkable wingbeats
Convert inner energy
to greatest amplitudes
of refined motion,
Wings reorienting their angles in
figure ∞ patterns.
This wax-leaf privet, they know,
was set here years past
by way of another form’s action.
One chose the same route
for five days, inspecting first
the progress of yesterday’s petals,
then paused in a windless place,
Its gaze upward
the very direction
of its heart.
Now it returns to the purple rosemary flower, just as it did moments
Ago.
Bopping Around Concordia
By Mary Therese Otis
Raindrops shine like JuJubes on flowers leaning out from lawns:
Rhododendrons! Tulips!
Euphorbia! Rosemary!
Lavender! Licorice Ferns
fanning from mossy boles of trees…
Out I go for my morning joe into the herbal air,
where joyful offerings sprout
like wild onions everywhere –
playful pops against long charcoal days and heavy, listless skies –
disarming as a baby’s
laughter in church.
Greeting each burst as I go, I SMILE
at the painted metal ant, ADMIRE
the landscape on the garden wall, TASTE
the free blueberries (thanks), EXPLORE
the little library, the wildlife sanctuary, READ the poem on the wooden stand, CHAT
with the chickens, and LAND
at last, on Alberta Street, with rhymes under my feet. And there I MEET in a shop window, the image of
a stranger – me – transformed, luminous
like the indigo glow on Portland’s crows….