Four Poems in a New Year

 

1. 1.  Dreaming of Snakes

Like a water snake the stream undulates

Under the leaves and twigs and at night no moon

Glistens on its wrinkled surface, but pain abates

In the silence of this invisible place. Too soon

The dawn will crack apart the darkness we craved

And watch the shadows play against the sky

And listen through our dreams. For years we staved

Off common sense. We refused to hear the magpie

Chatter and turned away, like a frightened child,

Believing what we will not recognize does not exist:

Now everything is dangerous and wild,

Fully exposed to the serpent’s glare. So I exit

Followed by a bear, the stage laid bare

At last where ill-painted landscapes fade and tear.

 

 

 

 

2. When A Coconut Falls

 

Where the breakers leave a silent patch of calm

The undertow is treacherous; it lures

The unwary. The roar of white crashing waves

Is reassuring. Someone looks up at the palm

And wonders if the coconut will fall;

Then lies against the trunk, and gently snores,

Dreaming of uncontaminated graves

In distant cemeteries where a pall

Of toxic smoke caresses his yesterdays,

Not as here where the evening’s scented breath

Convinces him the world is all ablaze

And the shadows protect him from unwanted death.

All things are topsy-turvy as the tide ebbs out

And ancient rips draw him into the shoals of doubt.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. Bird Song

 

The doves have come again this afternoon,

the finches bounce about, the thrush ascend

with booty in their beaks, all species swoon

when ripened plums proliferate. They end

the day bloated, inebriated, unable to fly,

they flop along the ground until the sun

is setting, while those in search of insects dive

into the walls of buildings, then lie there stunned,

unable to grasp the concept of windows. Sown seeds

and torn loaves of  bread form their usual fare;

they learn  about our restaurant, send screeds

of twitterings around the neighbourhood, to scare

their rivals off by jargon taunts. Then we

who feed them wish we also nested in a tree.

 

 

 

4. Noah’s Ark

 

All this, yet nothing more, you do your best

And when the day has past, the ground is as

It was. Tomorrow will be the same, the next

Probably the same, so on we go, the laws

Of nature never failing, each month the same,

Their names repeated down the ages, and ages

Turning into millennia,  infinity—No blame

On a creator running out of ideas. Sages

Do their best to innovate and speculate,

Midrashic rabbis, or shamans flying high

Above the material universe: we wait

For them as Noah peered out into the sky

When he set loose the raven, and then the dove

And everyone aboard the ark grew bored,

The branch dangling from its beak, an olive

Portended something better, but the Lord

Promised no catastrophes again: we live

In endless expectation of a change, and name

The person who repeats his miracles insane.