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The blue spring wind drifted the plum boughs up to the sun, an offering. In that moment you were one with the universe, even if five months gone from it, suggested the cricket song. A mourning dove cooed into the blue-powdered white thought. A set of wind chimes gently dinged somewhere not too far off. The alert brown alleycat's ears twitched like anxious pans, fanning the air to pick up and sort out the confusing soundmix the wind carried. Somewhere, very faintly, briefly in the distance, when in an instant of mercy traffic and all the other racket stopped, a tinny radio signal grew rich with shoals of orderly baroque violins.
Mourning dove perched on a tree limb: photo by Pccromeo, 2007
Mourning dove (Zenaida macroura): John James Audobon, from The Birds of America (1827-1838)
Mourning dove (Zenaida macroura), near Almaden Lake, Santa Teresa County Park, San Jose, California: photo by Don Debold, 2008
9 comments:
Wow. This is so lovely. "Pan" and "fanning," the movement of sound in the prose--such a great pleasure. Thanks, Dale
A moment of suspension to grasp the essence of nature in the hectic tide of time.
Wonderful =)
Usually "wind" is shown to take things away from us, but here, it serves to bring everything together, even the one lost, a moment stitched in air. Building to that fullness "rich with shoals" reminds me sound travels in waves; the unsaid ebb to follow is carried inside that tidal pull...which makes that instant of mercy all the sweeter.
Hey Tom,
Like this prose passage a lot... kind of reminds me of some of Don McKay's writing in Field Notes... thanks for sharing with us
“A mourning dove cooed into the blue-powdered white thought.” And “a tinny radio signal grew rich with shoals of orderly baroque violins.” The more readily apparent patterns of your lush brocade, amigo.
Thank you friends, movement of sound, moment of suspension stitched in air, unsaid ebb, field notes, lush brocade, all lovely.
Annie, you have a sixth sense about these things, I think perhaps you've guessed about the gone one--this piece was writ five months after my mother's passing.
I like the final reassurance - however distant, however tinny - of those baroque violins.
Tc
Great title, it seems from a jazz song sang by sinatra or one of those boys. Very nice poem indeed. I can feel
things while I read it (although I do not know if I am interpreting it as you did), which can transport me to another place,
another life that I used to have in a distant land.
Be well TC
Zeph,
Yes, I'll take any reassurance, even distant, even tinny, whatever relieves the leaden facts of life just a bit... (and I must say a word from you will always qualify, distant perforce maybe, yet neither tinny nor leaden ever).
Mariana,
We're always looking for those transports aren't we, another time, another place, another land to get lost in, if only for a little while.
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