Most read ▸
Dave Bonta
morning of soft sun
and old gold
with the distant yelping
of trucks going backwards
the sound of limestone
being ground down
and a silent jay
going from oak to oak
throat pouch filled with acorns
it flies off east
i follow animal paths
into the afternoon
a gray squirrel buries an acorn
under a laurel bush
sees me watching
and digs it up again
i am not ready for
a light-filled forest
still half aflame
i struggle to recognize it
with thinning hair
comes the chill of loss
i finger a nickel
that slaveowner’s face
riding in my pocket
like i’m lewis and clark
under red and scarlet oaks
the music of falling acorns
tick-tocking but only
at random moments
i clock in at several
caught breaths an hour
bindweed seeds get high
in a gray squirrel’s gut
Convolvus winding
into a green sky
the ghetto of goldfinches
and spiderling balloonists
boundless
squirrel like a primate ancestor
what gets traded away
for a gift of visions
which buried treasure maps
slip from memory
allowing scatter-
hoarded acorns to sprout
in your gray squirrel mind-
turned-world
den holes
I knock on the tree to see
if a head pokes out
a breeze shakes acorns loose
their muffled thumps into rain-
softened moss
how great it felt
not to be afraid of falling
in last night’s dream
perched aristocratically
among the toadstools
a cranefly
Dead oakleaves everywhere
Under my feet,
Filling the forest air
With odours sweet.
Acorns, three, four and five,
Falling apace.
Thank God I am alive
This day of grace!
I grew spiritually fat living off the souls of men.
If I saw a soul that was strong
I wounded its pride and devoured its strength.
The shelters of friendship knew my cunning
For where I could steal a friend I did so.
And wherever I could enlarge my power
By undermining ambition, I did so,
Thus to make smooth my own.
And to triumph over other souls,
Just to assert and prove my superior strength,
Was with me a delight,
The keen exhilaration of soul gymnastics.
Devouring souls, I should have lived forever.
But their undigested remains bred in me a deadly nephritis,
With fear, restlessness, sinking spirits,
Hatred, suspicion, vision disturbed.