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Happenings
I watch as great mysteries unfold:
an avocado pit upended in some water
pokes its green hello out into the world,
a single ant scouts for morsels and
finding a grain, broadcasts over an invisible
network to the waiting column, their swords
glistening in sunlight, bread-bin jaws all
pincers and determination
How slumberers buried underground all winter
under sub-zero overcoats and blankets, blushingly
don their intimate lingerie at each new spring:
geraniums in their pink petticoats, orange blossoms
dabbing Chanel No5 on newly wakened cheeks,
baby tortoises playing hide-and-seek, making
little crunchy sounds in dry leaves and twigs
On the radio, Haydn’s trumpet concerto—
music, always a great mystery, how rows of
little squiggles on paper transform themselves
via brains, fingers and lips into continuous
streams of delight. And how this pen in my
fingers moves, almost of its own volition
over a naked and waiting sheet, making love
to the paper in loops and bounds
I watch as loops turn into words. In the audience
someone coughs. Wonder whether tortoises
enjoy Haydn or whether they crawl
over and around the squiggles without any
appreciation of their meaning.
As we crawl around our lives
kidding ourselves that we know so much
more than ants or geraniums
© Johnmichael Simon
2015
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