In another poem, called The Logic of Spring,
a mechanical drawing of a tree
that I've passed a 100 times
on my way to a different problem.
I glance backwards, and the stack of the day
multiplies, glancing backwards several times,
the dog-eared corner with the graph paper sky of that morning
and the logic of spring.
Right before I wake, I hear the riposte of mean jays (blue dots
that drag the pink banners of answers off the tree
with words in gold italic latin)
from the fog pumped in by the machine
set on my lawn. First thing in the morning,
(page numbers in all the dish rags hanging around the sink)
I part the buttery curtains
to see beyond the doric columns sitting on my porch & the
hibiscus twig
that someone has set the stump of such a tree—gray
smudges and still intact line breaks
with flashing pink splashes—
outside my house while I slept.
Seems unbearably cruel until
I realize that in the flapping fog I finally hear its questions.
Are you so easily distracted
by pieces of a poem
attached to a tree?
in which as the situation changes
you catch glimpses of yourself
a series of emoticons.