Poems
Love is not an Element
excruciating as a high school orchestra
or butterflies talking eternity
only a mathematician can disregard
diction
only breathe
love cultured in a
transparent medium -
a tinhorn
relative to the interaction
that releases it
- still out-gleams
gold to a starving heart
when there's a measure
it's not enough to make do
Tourbillon
the airy necklace
of eddies
gravity unstrung
drops
beads
like a feather
navigate light
with touch
Aoraki's tip flies a snow cloud
through a bolt of sun
c
an easterly enters the valley
the stillness begins to pulse
neck feathers ripple
but we stay low
is this usual?
cicada static across
the predawn call of a morepork?
the longhaul flights loose
another four hundred
into the stonefields
and it hasn't rained since
the day we found the peradams
those jewels
recovered only at dawn or dusk
moments of clarity
faceted doorways to dimensions
where light stands still
these jewels
attractive only to an eye
opening
last night
three shallow earthquakes
disturbed the animals
continents scrambled toward high ground
whales weighing less than cattle
polar bears roaming the grasslands
humans rooted like forests
in concrete sway
imperceptibly
in the solar wind