The Last Line

On Sunset Blvd.

For just an instant, a moment in new air,

A gap between cars, a silence.

The Carrier of Moments

What glory in the shadowless goldfinch wings.

They recreate the air, sliding silver lines,

For just an instant a fan of feathers, then lost

To space, to background distractions, mistakes.

The opposite of oratorio, a single godless voice,

I can hear the finch from here, even vanished,

The song a homonym for the song it sang,

For just an instant, a moment in new air.

Corvus

A blessing in the moving shadows on my face,

The shadow of a murder of crows, off

There, they know where. The crimson gladiolas

Tip in the neighbor’s yard, threaten to break

Under the weight of red-engineered blossoms.

At my feet a smooth brown stone—I seek a cause:

Wind? Rain? Water? It all amounts to time.

When the nothing comes from shadows,

When the nothing slides under the belly of the worm,

What glory in the shadowless goldfinch wings.