Pause and Tumble

from “Beds” in Can I Finish, Please? by Catherine Bowman

These lines float like a haiku in the onrush of lines…

you are enskied
         in the mockingbird’s
              indwelling song

See what I mean by tumble…

you are enskied
         in the mockingbird’s
              indwelling song

as it concocts
        a soporific
              of wolves apples,

and aftershave,
        gossip and flattery
              and all the daily

contradictions,
        salty and unmelodious—
              this scent bottle,

clouds of cosmos,
        mallow and iris
and marigold—

[and so on]
[and so on]
[and so on]

“Enskied” and “indwelling” harken to Hopkins but the riot of flowers lead elsewhere, to Chaucer, perhaps…

And so for day 2152
03.11.2012