Metaphor

    There is a star near
    the hinge of planets,
    a barn under
    a cow's lick of moon -
    plausible people
    moving thru an
    airless universe.

    Pay attention to the frond of lilac
    . . . limestone troughs upon which
    thickets of Indian scalp &
    devil's paintbrush soar
    to the horizon
    and, afterwards,
    little creeks run
    with the sparrows of evening time
    in step to tiny boatmen
    that echo enamelled snails
    from the very consonants of earth.

    Rustle of leaves,
    some might argue
    breathless gasps
    to intone the savagery
    of little seasonal voices
    cut off
    mid-stream.

    A spate of bees,
    early colonizers
    deflower blossoms and
    strip-mine lava butter of erupting
    hard-shell tulips:
    such careless penetrations -
    volcanic intrusions entomb
    their hairy bodies caked with
    the iron-lung of blackened soot petals,
    each a cough drop
    on the heaving breath
    of a declining afternoon.