I skim through a lot of poems, and the sounds here made me stop. Blur, were, whir, heard, scales, tell, forked, afloat, tongue, foxglove, work, earth, remote, rote, broken, token, came, kiss, meant, make, matter. The poem reveals an ear. I wouldn't say it hums, exactly. Maybe it huffs. There's some work here.
Hum
When I smelled green through the blur
where its wings were, felt
the whir of their arc, heard the red
of its ruby throat-scales, tasted the dart of its forked tongue
afloat in the foxglove—my only desire was
to tell you.
My weed-work stopped. Hands
in earth, I knelt by the garden wall,
and suddenly that world seemed remote.
I called to you, aloud, and the words I spoke
were rote, broken, each one an arbitrary token
of the tiny bird that came to kiss the flowers.
It was then I knew my exile's full extent.
The phenomenon of pungent sound is brighter—
sheer iridescent now there then—
than the hours of thought without flesh. Once, to be
at one meant to act, so I have tried to make this
matter.
Published in Boulevard
Hum or whirr here.
