Poetry of Issue #7        Page 2

Among the Plane Trees

At dawn the owl’s final cry
officiates. You feed the cats
with a better grasp of the present
and note the owl perched, preening
after a night of rendered flesh.
In a day or two I’ll discover
an owl pellet under the tree.
Secret bones will repose in it
like the bad dreams of a mummy.

The owl clenches against the day,
composing itself as a figure
braced against a background almost
its pattern and color. Likewise
the language we attempt to share
with each other and the world
dissipates against a background
of similar grunts and sighs and groans.

Even in the Luxembourg Gardens
I heard myself dispersed among
a raucous of wanton phonemes,
The gravel shimmered like ore.
Intersecting paths challenged me.
Benches faced chairs facing benches,
but no one sat. They walked, chatted,
ground me under their fluency.

You wonder why I weigh the cry
of an owl as heavily as the curse
of Genesis. Because that spring
afternoon on the Pavillon
my hands were talons and I clawed
myself raw enough to plant
raving among the plane trees
with my only prey myself
and all my quarrels resolved.