“The art of love is largely the art of persistence.” — Albert Einstein
After the Earthquake, the World Goes On
The earth turns
like a sac of hard seeds, a shift then a rattle, quail landing to feed in the red mud, though I think they are eating sunflower seeds softened by rain, my offering.
Whatever I give a bird, I give the earth, I give you. Black beak, black cave of mouth, black shell opening, then the tender tongue reaching out, in, pink flesh licking away hunger, what’s left behind, a green tendril taking root, a lust for light. Forget distinctions here. Wings turn into leaves, words into wind, these liquid eyes, tentative sunflowers, mums, daisies, watching themselves wither in winter drizzle, yet fully here. Quail will claw ground until the scraping of my pencil flushes them into redwoods.
Can you hear their feathers, how they sigh and whisper? Now quiet. Always this sweet fruiting out of the dry rattle, rubble of stones, time layered, before the turning from sun into haze the color of plums.