The Daily: 17 April 2024

What with weather and spring and illness and actual car wrecks (yes, plural), I’ve rather gotten off my schedule. There were things planned for this day, for this week, that didn’t happen. So I chucked what was in the queue and decided to throw up some of the poetry I’ve written for National Poetry Month.

and squawking with feathers ruffled
it waddled up to time
and with its beaky spike
punched a hole right through the continua

the lacuna blinked in sleepy surprise
    discomfited by new-made dishabille
    tatters flapping around the void
as seconds were suddenly sucked out
and whole minutes dripped into oblivion

pleased with its work
the beast lazily loosened more threads
while, weakly, i grasped at my shinier thoughts
before they vanished into the growing vortex
and, bleakly, i watched whole stars
slip through my grip on reality
    well, there goes yesterday
i thought
    i suppose i won’t miss it

but territoriality sat me upright
declaring war on time’s excision
and so plucking up the clucking monster
i stuck it into the rent
neatly plugging the gap with feather and scale

i dimly heard it crowing foul
on the far side of eternity
while scales and feathers drifted disconsolately
    as though maat had sneezed
    and then stepped out to take a powder

thus i tucked a feather into my cap
and collapsed in exhaustion
awaiting the morning
wondering what fresh hell the new day would bring

sun whirls overhead
drops into western ether
rests in spirit lands
revitalized, rises with the dawning

we are the center of the universe

moon whirls overhead
but…
stutters, waxing, waning
chasing sun to founder on her brightness
reappears, slender and sharply smiling

he is changeful, devious flowing
we are still the center of the universe

stars whirl overhead
but…
some fixed, others weaving through the dance
morning star, evening star, syncopated steps
hummingbird star darts about, tasting the sun

some near, some far, gods following occult paths
we are still the center of the universe

geometry becoming burdensome
circles riding circles
tangents nibbling arcs
myths expanding, but rhythm falling short
mercury causing chaos…

we are still the center of the universe?

watching skies whirl overhead
we cast glass eyes into the heavens
moon becomes solid
sun becomes fire
gods become lost in the spangled void

where is the center of the universe?

and as the universe whirls overhead
we find time’s measure
tease ancestral bones from stone
brand galaxies with our naming
while gods recede into quantum spaces

and still…

we say, we want, we know, we feel
we are, we are, we are, we are…

but simply…

not the center of the universe…

(and we have not made peace with occam’s razor…)

because of course
no constants stand
did we not suspect so 
from relationship and relativity
and still the first glass spilled
contained all the light in the universe
extinguishing unobserved cats
as they wrapped their wily ways
around entangled minutiae
all in an instant
the silent flap of insect wings
reverberating across the known world
that being the catch
the madman chuckles
for known is also relative
and so much smaller than an atom
smaller yet than the filaments
weaving together the waves of being
and so we can grasp
the very beginnings of time
from our comfortable chairs
plucking quasars from the story
like apples from the witch’s basket
and so we know
nothing is constant
save the continual recreation of reality
around each fragile instance
i am multitudes
quivering at the edge of unmaking velocity
this we know
and this knowing
erases all surety… 
because
such a delightful word…

for bequeathing time
rolled into fat dumplings of nothingness
yet filled with hitherto
unseen wonders
tasty treats to savor
in this sickness of ruined scent

for this necessary interruption
a yawning chasm of
nothing can be done
an interminable present
wherein no plans
come to fruition

for these purple hours
the liminal twilight
between struggling breaths
the now of slack tide
in which to notice
and then let pass

for incapacitated pause
in the round of daily doing
for a cogent command
to smell the roses
if only
you’d left the nose alone

for resting bodies
so long sundered from sleep
spinning thoughts and woven dreams
spooling out from this sickbed
a blessing on covid
for reminders that we are mortal
and must wisely note the time…

©Elizabeth Anker 2024