sunflowers aspire curbside: yellow
explosion of kitchen clocks—
petals marking ticks against
permanence, which just now equals sky blue sky &
white sun we can’t see past or into—black
brush stroke service wires below—contrails aloft—
everything in this story connects:
sunflowers my height plus a hand reaching
skyward—
you (not “you”) in a photo planting a
sacred fig in another country under another
of these zillion suns: as blinding—
the fig your height plus a hand reaching skyward—
brown leaves green leaves scattered in
gestures of resignation across
ground cleared of land mines—fig sapling aspiring
to shade the next enlightenment—
what sunlight’s flash & blaze divulge: these zillion
dust motes flutter encompassing each a
cosmos swirling in anguish & seeking—each
day seeking you again for the first time:
I need to make over my life—
a yellow clock’s hands sweep imperceptible
circles until this afternoon crescent lost
outside in light sets itself in
motion toward a sunset’s moonrise
& at last the big seed heads bow in late afternoon
Jack Hayes
© 2015
simply beautiful. simply stunning and simply simple.... perhaps it's that the little man has been singing Rent's "Seasons of Love," but i kept coming back to the clock hands and how little changes can be made in moments, and how those moments add together and big changes can be made.... from the second hand to the minute hand to the hour.
ReplyDeletesimply beautiful.
I love the association between the sunflower and the yellow clock. "petals marking ticks against permanence" is beautiful. And it's a poem that leaves you tense and a little breathless, because of that sense of time moving, and even if you're stalling or letting things pile up, it just keeps moving. You're pushed along anyway.
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