Joppenbergh

Reverb of light

wind

shadow

the secret is

leaves.

When a poem knocks

you get up and go to the door

across the threshold

a flow of images

immense

there are threshing circles

there is

Artemis – head bowed

eyes averted

there is Taygettos’

ridgeline

its panoramas

where villagers meet

to dance

before the war

and after the war

between

watersheds

or you may remain seated

as at

an Annunciation

half pregnant

oscillating

these are butterfly wings

alight

with meaning

one beat suffices

ça annonce.

Frost flowers and what wells from underneath

against the pane

feathery – we could have flown away

white

against the sun, if we had been we

                        and life were otherwise

I remember water leaking from the mountainside

and from our eyes

remember the tiny lenses in the screen, that magnified bits of

green

through the kitchen door

                        against the woods

But wishing does not make it so

on earth

and today I am far from frost, from woodland and winter’s

grey

although the rains have come to Jerusalem, falling

                        on the parched dirt

On the terrace, a flurry of sparrows

picks

at crumbs, they are bathing in dust and their color is

sand

they fly up, it is dry, and you are gone

                        I am freezing.

Flowing, floating

on air a flock, full

the air is full of streaming

upstream and the river flows down

each winged seed soft as

Flight itself, as

shadow above, of one

heron and a second—a pair

then a third, and a fourth

then gone

I am thinking

of water, of these

Flocken, of

three-dimensional air and the sounds

of the birds

Of an other, it is/are/am

you, whoever you are, are

each seed, its filaments, many

parachuting, threadlike

and silver

In 2008 in the USA

the bees refused

to return to their hives 

they deserted into this

fullness

Why do they call it widow’s weeds?

women were ever the gardeners

and yet there is

this

flying

Die Hintertreppe

diese und jene

kitchen stairs and the weight of sitting

you might, if you would

now

lift me

White against blue

against green

against river, and trees, and grass

against the garage, which is gray

and the red barn, its weight

Seeds fly

von alleine, von alleine is

by themselves and alone

this breeze

is profound

A bumblebee

and a honey bee

among so many seeking

it is here, it is blue

before it is iris.

Looking forward

Please

let us now look back

to the Giant Oyster Horizon

seas bursting with fish 

forests alive

with red fox, bear, moose

nor forget the birds

and the beavers

Then

let us review

the earth-changing gains 

progressively 

extracted by 

our deadly mortal species

and let us ask ourselves what 

will survive us.

for words are magic

and they only go

if they are true

to those with ears

to hear them.

A word is made flesh

by a tongue, a chord

strangled in the throat

A word is made flesh

by an ear, a pulsating

transparent shell

A word is made flesh

body/       /soul

by a miracle.

The doubleness of words:

What do you mean, “love”?

Untranslatability, in a word

Diótima

Diotíma.

River rushes

pouring out

light suffused

with cicadas

ringing

Falling

my other

my true voice said 

cadere

who will catch this

cadence?

Jetztzeit

not now/time

A bolt of lightning

rips the sky

Adam and Eve

flee before heaven

An odor of sulfur

fills the museum

every canvas

its own commentary.