poems as hand- and foot-holds on a glass mountain

What Have You Heard?

What have you heard? Rhododendron’s thin
lipped buds have burst permitting small white tongues
to thrust out, startle us like pumpkins
emerging from pea pods. January hung

its shingle out as April not caring
if its time is synced with ours, with maples
lined up facing it, with dogwood’s berries
those tiny late-spring showoffs. Nothing’s stable

like we used to tell ourselves it was
but wasn’t. Order is a lazy person’s
version of disorder; you discount what
doesn’t fit in as anomaly. A certain

subtlety can take in anything
and spit back only what its world prescribes.
The outlook of overlook. Without wings
You have to leave much out or not arrive.

Not arriving is this splendid place. Birds
return with winging witness. Have you heard?

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