"water music"

water music

multiple scarlet dimensions of the rhododendron corolla
the sound of one hand plucking “Down by the Riverside” on classical guitar &
whatever took place at daybreak has floated far downstream with
ducks & a Chinese junk & flotsam—

the Morrison Bridges unfolds its bascules skyward—
another form of “hello,” for instance a
baseball's seams’ whirring uncomfortably close to the body
on a serene May evening when you’ve yet to consider twilight—

startling as the sun reflected in a puddle in the little league diamond’s
righthand batter’s box—a woman you scarcely know poised on the
curb waiting to come across—illusion of a rising fastball
sailing between the dimensions—it was another twilight, ever-

green Vermont air, a dirt road, the tree frogs change-ringing
peal the time my father went deaf with the windows rolled down—
underwater—Willamette River heaving gray toward the Columbia under
the celadon spires of St John’s Bridge

coast to coast—a 12 to 6 curveball falling like any other
egg onto a laminate floor—but dragon boats will surge up-
stream in June after all while roses unfold—the
ghostly spring run of kinamasu salmon in quantum space


A.K. Barkley
© 2014


Image links to its source on Wiki Commons
Egoyomi by Suzuki Harunobu, based on a mitate showing 10th century calligraphy expert Ono no Tôfu as a frog missing its aim several times before finally succeeding. 1765
Public domain