Ullambana 2016

Ullambana 2016
August 17, 2016


airplanes in the north: crimson & golden sparks:
apparition of the Big Dipper hovers dim—
but all seven planets burning burning white without
heat:
         paper boat burned to cinders on black
Willamette waters: all hiss & flash &
tea rose eruption—

           crickets chirping deep in
sweet pea clematis grape vines on Vancouver
Avenue—

            these can’t be the only voices;
sunflower looming beside the dark sidewalk
gazes east

           —the final three days you didn’t speak—
yesterday evening a porch on hospital grounds
a green magnolia breeze those white roses gone
to rust in August—

                         the train crossing night’s water,
the Steel Bridge black skeletal hulk—
                                                           talking to
you in my sleep you answer me:
                                                don’t call anymore
it was the first time you came back   
   
& as spring blossomed just weeks after your death
an unilluminated city block offered me this
glimpse of the Milky Way as if through a picture window
facing west throughout eternity: I can’t
grasp that depth of silence
   
                       the little league diamond’s
amber lights glow among sycamore leaves shine against
empty green bleachers
                                     on the sere parking strip
Queen Anne’s Lace mirrors the moon waits for heat
tomorrow to spawn its flock of cabbage whites
to say goodbye to say goodbye the last time again



Jack Hayes
© 2016