Golden hour

In the winter,
when night arrives
like an untimely guest,
I climb to the roof
of the world every evening,
in search of the last place
touched by the sun.
It is so little to ask for,
this simple ecstasy,
this golden prayer
on my skin, that sometimes
I worry the Earth is home
to many who do not know
even this. Oh, I am sorry
if you have forgotten
the revelry of stars,
if the concrete
and towering routine
have built their barricades.
If only I could climb
just a little higher
to sweep you a piece,
a feather of a ray
to tickle your skin
and hold you close into
the night. Meanwhile I mourn
the obstacles of this world –
how high we must climb,
those who wish to touch the sun.

Of mice and infinite regress

“But what does this second turtle stand on?” persisted James patiently.
To this, the little old lady crowed triumphantly,
“It’s no use, Mr. James—it’s turtles all the way down.”

— J. R. Ross, Constraints on Variables in Syntax, 1967

I don’t know where the world meets
turtle, or how to greet it. Where do
its feet become oceans? What’s
hidden in the valleys of its skin?
And why a turtle?

Couldn’t the universe hang
from – say – the tail of a great
gray mouse? How the planets
bob and twist as it scampers between
ebony holes and yellow dust.  

Maybe the mouse rides on the tail
of another gray mouse, and another,
and another, as they trail like ribbons
across the cosmos. But where, then,
do mice begin and galaxies end? 

Mice, like atoms, have thankless jobs,
but I still try to be thankful for what
I cannot see. There are layers of truth
in tails, infinities we cannot hold
in our hands.

 Our mysteries rise like smoke
from the ancestors’ pipes, spinning
across the rivers of the wind.
No variables, no limits.
Mice all the way down.

Ghazal of wings

Yesterday the cranes began their dance. 
Do you remember the feathers over the ripples, my love?  

How we used to stand between the slivers of the reeds, our feet
tickled by damp, waiting for the winged gods to land and love - 

the mornings spent beneath the sheets of their duets,
the spring, as you pulled me close and we made love.  

The wind remembers every wingbeat of our melodies. 
Can you hear the sandhill cranes calling, my love?  

Some day they will take me to you
and we will become feathers, my love. 

Poetry by Ana Reisens