Alate

cottonwood seeds dance Brownian
about a million tiny, shimmering
reversed snowflakes rising off the
patio--alates, termites,
Reticulitermes hesperus, I'd guess
a nuptial flight:
most organisms flood the world with babies
and hope a few survive;
termites force their reproductive
caste en masse from the dark
subterranean galleries that are
the only world the cast outs
have ever known
into the glaring sunlight,
a dessicating world filled with
mouths

the hapless twist in cobwebs
or turn pointless circles on the
concrete, fragile wings
mangled and broken
and still they pour from
clumpy towers and rise like lazy
sparks into the air

, the swifts collapsing chatters overhead

if I owned this house I suppose I would be
alarmed at this surface spectacle that
hints at goings on below
but I am a renter, and moving soon,
and I think I will have another beer
and watch the hummingbirds
hum and go

Two-bit tyrant

It's February and, for suburban california anyway, the flower situation is still pretty bleak. Some radishes, calendula, the first wave of spring bulbs. But this little guy is a visionary, a speculator. Perched on dormant grapes, he gloats. Carving out great U-shaped arcs above the garden each punctuated with a percussive squeak. "Some months from now, ladies," he boasts, "all this will be sage and epilobium as far as the eye can see--red blossoms bursting from silver bushes--paradise on Earth. You'll want to get in on the ground floor of this one, trust me."

what a douche.

Bathroom Poem

Sometime past midnight;
Spiders doing
Spider jobs.

 

I live smack dab in the concentrated creamy center of the Pacific flyway. This makes me lucky.

The Art of Blogging

Diffusivity