The Locomotive

is no bigger than my thumb,

a tree’s straight-grained

fragment milled to a shape

implying dynamics,

but parked on the bookshelf

it doesn't budge an inch,

except as we all do in earth’s

thousand mile per hour spin—

the locomotive’s out of proportion

with the globe’s caravels

sailing two-dimensional seas;

the wall clock above,

with scalloped blossom edge, forms

a sort of compass rose,

& the ballast of books below—

                                             there’s not enough time to

read everything & still set foot on

a sailing ship bound for purple

mists on the horizon between Yachats &

Ise Jingu when the wind blows

from the west in summer filled with

invisible kanji & the steps of

Basho in the snow as he lost himself in

eternity beside sun & moon—

Asian pears in a bowl in the

kitchen; I could fetch one here

but I’m typing instead in syncopation

with the clock, thinking about painting

these walls light green perhaps;

the Anglo-Saxon grammar

on the bottom shelf & the crow

outside the window discuss winter—

beyond the carved

boxwood Guanyin on

the sill green

rhododendrons

lean in to listen

Jack Hayes 
© 2017