cloudy day coffee sutra

what would you call that sky? dissolving to
mist unfit for paper birds all falling
ash-gray slate-gray nickel-gray falling in
counterpoint with yellow leaves—what
would you call that tree? gray limbs in dancer’s
gestures reaching & reaching—that low sky
can’t be grasped those folds upon folds of
clouds this massive origami not what it seems this
tonnage of ice & water as if the Pacific mirrored it-
self in what some call heavens—
                                      vapor rising from
two cups of coffee on this counter, trans-
muted liquid: you know, language is like that
too paper birds afloat in the mind &
folded with no beginning no end the speech
of birds in an ash tree scissoring loose its
leaves, gray branches the lichen mottled cream-
white milk-white what would you call those
passersby no two alike no two different all
looking for something not apparent you said
god is like that too the water droplet within the
ocean seeking the ocean
                         that sky lowering, that
bird in silhouette that Chinese character’s
brushstrokes tracing black green blue in one
syllable what would you call that? quadrillion
raindrops paper birds imagined branches this
coffee steam rising up these people walking it
goes without saying all one all undiminished


Jack Hayes
© 2015