new moon cello (after Zoë Keating)

for Sheila

loss is constant across the dimensions:
an entire Chinese bestiary achieving form & gone:
waning crescent moon melting to new moon’s
hollow, this improvisation soaring beyond &
beyond the vanishing point in this theater’s
        sapphire light, that flock of
crows rising off a frozen pasture in March, grass
stubble ragged amidst corn snow: faces
taking form & gone—the helicopter blasting
cherry blossoms westward off 
        boughs in Waterfront Park, that perfect
blue Thursday, sun a halo of
grief: now May, & ghostly
        rhododendrons nod—notes swell
& fade & swell & fade, the sinews drawing
        pangs travail transcendence across
four strings to that foursquare city built beyond time;
    “it’s in the nature of things”—black Willamette
rolling past bridge lights, polyphony rolling past
stage lights now violet now emerald opal amber;
    the heart’s daily shattering, blue flowered
saucer dropped to the floor, & the hand reaching out,
holding shards forth: at the continent’s other extreme
you absorbed in a poem where a butterfly disappears
    within crimson blossoms: dark cello,
waxing crescent silver hair wave, eyes closed in unlit
night amongst such profusion of quavers our incarnations 
    brief & brief then brief again


Jack Hayes
© 2016