3 poems by

GENEVIEVE KAPLAN

Three Breezes

            •

Is it lucrative?

When one picks up the phone or one finds a thread

is it a metaphor?

Is it formulaic?

Had all this here been finally

here, and all truly believed and understood as such?

Is it motionless?

Is it distinctive?

Can we

rest upon it?

 

            •

 

orbit and drift       or circle and rise,      

or morning and recognition       or walking

and sight. And being otherness       (otherwise)      

alone in the yard       otherwise

lonely       otherwise taking the air in through the nose and recognizing the plant      

      animal       plush       dampness    

 

askew from the bag of dead flies       hanging from the eaves      

apart from the whine             of lawnmower  from down the block      

wonder:       if that seat

is so much one       that has been occupied for hours      

would it not subvert expectations to find       the regal(ish)      

queen        (animal)       of the yard posing there?

  

dear the recognizable motion       dear the knowing the landscape     

see      plants to thrive in the sun      

the sun       the sun      

or plants for the moonscape       treescape       water garden      

 

            •

 

The fan which could awaken       or the face cleared of watchfulness.      

One is disappointed.       one wonders when the challenges      

become worthwhile       (here      

they don’t.       here.)      

or when something still not       uncovered       

begins to right       itself.

The day is a boat        the day dissolves     

like the sea.        Evaporation       

a first peek into the desert        my  first understanding       

(under-tending)        of the allure of living under     

a rock.       If you bring one and another      

one       if all the daylight is sublime      

and there, along the base of the fence       where there is an inch or two of shade.

Someone says a bit of wisdom—offers it   

Perhaps everything needs to be green

or perhaps folded, or moving toward

 

perfect, the too many things I had hoped

I might be or become, the very only flower

 

worth any tender. The tree I go to in the night

or in noon, to take shade. Though I may finish

 

a meal, or I finish a book, the peck courses

through me, and the peach, and the apple.

Sleep is not / that

1.

A paw

gets caught, a nail, the

breath above my pen

which is an

action. All

who seek laps find

them eventually. Or:

your aphorism

is my duck

soup. If I said I

admire the lack

of conversationality, this

other lack, and

the softness that follows

me around, from room

to room:

 

2.

 

I see

how January has gone

that February

is slipping, that one

cat stays in the

room and one cat waits

in the hall. All

their ears alerted.

 

3.

The pill

I take makes

no difference; the

white pill, similarly

has little effect. I

want to make

a card and show

pleasure, some

enthusiasm. I

intend a kind of

solution.

 

4.

 

Seeking

somewhere to begin

I find fur, I find

pipe cleaners

I find water

spilled over the edges

of bowls, the corners

of blankets, strings and ribbons, light

rugs flipped over

upon themselves, investigations

into corners, looser

ends, a smile of birds:

 

5.

I find

I’m rarely

sorry, disappointed,

irrational, when

an animal

has befriended me.