pastoral in negative space #2

west wind rustling through fescue & ryegrass parched in
August said nothing you could repeat—numinous as
an oxygen concentrator huffing in a bedroom lit
up vermilion in total lunar eclipse—
nothing you could repeat: sprinkler head changing
water to smoke & each pine torches root to
crown on the pyrokinetic mountain—nothing you
could repeat: redwinged blackbird caught in full
trill rippling the pond’s cirrus cloud surface—
these mule deer materializing within whatever
comes next to silence across the twilight mesa:
handful of whispered secrets you deny to yourself,
photograph of a voice pronouncing nothing


Jack Hayes
© 2015