blood oranges, poem edit, etc.

{a very delicious organic Moro blood orange, my afternoon snack today.}

{Though I've been assured they do get regular oranges in Whitehorse, will I be able to eat blood oranges there next spring?}

{so tasty! so sweet & juicy! fruit of springtime}

Aside from gratuitous blood orange love, I have edited my ghazal poem slightly. Using an established form in a poem is still very novel to me. Other than experimenting with tanka, haiku, & sonnets (oh, junior high english class) it is something I just haven't done. I find some poetic forms ridiculously contrived, there is something so elegant & elegaic about the ghazal. Despite the second couplet's repeated phrase, there's something freeing about it.

* * *

of waxwings.

they come as a gift, this sudden crescendo of waxwings:
a blue sky shattered, feathered filaments of waxwings.

& when i dragged you outside, took you from your tea
it was just to share with you the gift of waxwings –

& they are darting so intricately, this ephemeral embroidery
edging our eyes, the clouds with ashy stitches of waxwings.

& from beak to beak they pass elm-bark and ash-berries,
your lips were red as the throat-flutes of waxwings –

& how they alight! then leave, reverberate urgency
surging through us softly a warm wind of waxwings –

& an echoing srreeeee leaves an ache so sharp, saddened
as grey wings sweep the air, the dissolving of waxwings.

& their migration: simplicity that deconstructs me,
leaves me earthbound & hungry for the flight of waxwings –

& would that i could hold you so tightly, though i see
we can’t be as whole as a flocking of waxwings –

our bright hearts lay on the snow, remnants of chokecherries
how graceful waves scatter us, trees dripping of waxwings –

o would that i could speak to you & ease you of grieving!
but my words flutter inchoate, distant keening of waxwings.