The Logic of Spring

In another poem, called The Logic of Spring,

a mechanical drawing of a tree

that I've passed a 100 times

on my way to a different problem.

I glance backwards, and the stack of the day

multiplies, glancing backwards several times,

the dog-eared corner with the graph paper sky of that morning

and the logic of spring.

Right before I wake, I hear the riposte of mean jays (blue dots

that drag the pink banners of answers off the tree

with words in gold italic latin)

from the fog pumped in by the machine

set on my lawn. First thing in the morning,

(page numbers in all the dish rags hanging around the sink)

I part the buttery curtains

to see beyond the doric columns sitting on my porch & the

hibiscus twig

that someone has set the stump of such a tree—gray

smudges and still intact line breaks

with flashing pink splashes—

outside my house while I slept.

Seems unbearably cruel until

I realize that in the flapping fog I finally hear its questions.

Are you so easily distracted

by pieces of a poem

attached to a tree?

in which as the situation changes

you catch glimpses of yourself

a series of emoticons.

Source: Lid to the Shadow (Slope Editions, 2011)