Sometimes what the child needs is less
a sermon than a song, and a bird
to sit silent beside her and take notice.
Any wonder we think in affinities.
We know our language fails as notes
fail in air so they might, in us, continue.
The arc of the scimitar, the harp,
the long maternal surge, the bow flex
of the sternum and the ache of pitch,
they reemerge in shapes yet to fully
crown or cry or crest into their context.
When I see a half-fallen curtain,
I see an eye on the verge of sleep.
Or arrival. The lighting of the mind.
Or the kiss that is a little of each.
I see a sky’s great unfinished project,
and who is not, orphan of an orphan
planet, so battered once it tore apart.
Crust and mantle shattered, pumice bloomed,
and in the gash, the residual hiss
of rain rose. And bled a lifeform onto shore.
—Bruce Bond (Another Chicago Magazine)