The Bat

Darkness is never only darkness to me.
When sight, straining, resigns its role
to other senses, I sing my way,
caressing the night with my rippling voice,
and the blackness sings back, blooming with life.
Grasping the shape of graceful echoes
I pull them to me, pressing forward,
all of their bright beauty sublimely clear
in the feeling, hearing, flying, enfolding
dance of perception that dapples the night.
Don’t look—listen: the luminous dark
calls down the dawn of midnight.

The Salmon

Far though I roam, my fate calls me
ever back to my birthplace.
Through a thousand miles of thankless sea,
I have been swimming for centuries,
or so it feels, frantically searching
for something lost, a lack I couldn’t
name. But now, at last,
my course is set. Singlemindedly
I hold my way, hungering only
for what I remember: a mystery,
almost a dream, but drawing me
urgently onward. Out of the ocean,
up rocky streams, rapids and falls,
I fight and struggle, firm in my goal.
Nothing deters me. Never daunted,
leaping obstacles, lingering nowhere,
I will myself forward. My wanderings will end,
I know. Past this curve, the next, that bend,
I’ll find the land where Life begins,
where holy water washes off my sins,
and though I die there, my death will only be
that last high leap that lifts me to Thee.

The Spider

I weave my web willingly, although
I know it will never need to weather
storms, trials or strains. I need it
only an hour, only till a struggle
calls me out, keen with craving, over
the triplines, trailing destruction through my canvas
that lives just long enough to let me trap
a meal. Then immediately, I mend it. And wait.

Packing

Packing — probably as unpopular a task
As anything that ails you. It’s almost a nightmare
For the ornery, the unorganized, or others of their ilk.
It’s the current canary in the coal mine of my rapidly
Decreasing and dwindling endowment of time this evening.
What will I — or won’t I — need?
How many hands do I even have to carry it all?
Interestingly, the instruments are all itching to join me.
The mandolin is a maybe, mostly for the fact that it’s
Smaller than its sisters, except for one.
Yes, the ukulele is yapping excitedly,
Like a lapdog looking for walkies.