Nature

Fragilitiesa chickadee wheels hard into my kitchen windowI carry its silencelay it gently on the snow after the earthquakeamongst the cathedral stoneschildren gather the stained glasshunched over by the frosted windowher arthritic paint-stained handscreate deer and children on a green hill with happy trees after the earthquakeamongst the cathedral stoneschildren gather the stained glass from twigs and leavesstones and snow his creations refined by naturesculpted by wind and rain after the earthquakeamongst the cathedral stoneschildren gather the stained glass outside this trucka bare face would in minuteslook like the moonlighting these empty fieldsafter the earthquakeamongst the cathedral stoneschildren gather the stained glass

Red is a hot iron flaming, red is a cow on the prod. Red is a ribbon of pink in the sky brushed on the by the hand of God. Orange is Indian summer, with leaves turning gold somersaults. Orange is twirling in three-quarter time when the band plays the Harvest Moon Waltz. Yellow is slickers on saddles. Yellow is spuds with the roast. Yellow’s a golden October sun buttering the prairie like toast. Indigo angers the heavens, and indigo night-shrouds the trees. Indigo flaps on the clothesline in spring when Levis blow stiff on the breeze. Violet is crocus and lupines. Violet tastes saskatoon-sweet. Violet is royally riding the range with a kingdom of grass at your feet. Blue is the mist in the valley, the sky like a sapphire dome. Blue is the worry and lonesome you feel when riders are late getting home. — Doris Daley

Lightheadedness

As in black seed shards under bird feeders sizzling
Into snow scattered type messages for Virgil or Dante or
Kurt Schwitters as in dizzy blonde as in Lady Luck as
In coming upon a line of reasoning so pure it
Intoxicates the afternoon as in drunk with mindlight everything
Speeded up each becoming its own energy only light houses light
Years as in what is the difference between a true
Fact and an imaginary one one hundred and thirty-three percent of
Hannah Arendt's book written in English and the other
one hundred and thirty-three percent in another tongue or so
It would be in one of those true dreams we never understand as in
A moment of longing so intense I'm scooped out by love feather
Flame of scar that flickers up your belly oh I need more grace
Than I thought as in the solitary cricket winding its watch under heat lightning flicker
As in the wind chimes warning of the place the two worlds
Collide with a sudden jangle
Clatter and things slip from the one world to the other
And possibly back again