Poem with a Quote from Ross Macdonald

Abstract

Morning. Today, on the planet, a rag-colored cat falls into its Ninth life and huddles, just like a man in his Only, shivering skin a little. It's green out. The sun unfolds like a Japanese fan. A tree will rise in spirit, joyously, but first it needs the cut and the burning. Somewhere today the two rings of a marriage stare like a walleyed face in its opposite directions. Somewhere a little happiness sparks from two chipped flints, where's tinder? quick! It's blue out. A tree wiU rise in spirit. A soul just needs: a wound; a mood: a hurt?then there's ascension, and long content. A factory somewhere whistles and its shifts switch?or was it a rooster over two rows of egg hens? Blonde aunt in a cab. ?Her roots, like those of the forest, are darker. A phone, like a tree, will age in rings. It's amethyst out. There's a soul, and there's a peaceful place, and there's a mind; it only requires this small stab first, a what-was-said-over-breakfast. The planet, held in its equinoxes as if in tongs. The day, it's rose out, it's manganese. A tree will go to axe, to match, and so be released. There's good out, reaUy. Believe me, it's for the best. Today a tree wiU faU. A marriage ages in rings. The little ethereal survives, I know. A cherry. A wine. Today on the planet: a border war; the poplars slicing sun like French chefs at buttery leeks; a truck overturned; a kiss and behind the car ten tin cans dragged on strings like jangling phone communication the newly weds ignore; a tree, a noise, a calm stretch. If she said it often enough, it would have to come true. Just a cut, just a burn, the day's everything, then the long content, I promise.