NEW LEAVES

The Grand Opening begins with a simple wave,

Color-coded pale green and thin as paper;

Pollen dusts the air and every breath; and

Sun screens stretch across small ribs and veins,

As new leaves unfold in the pages of a new book,

Huddled together on the side of the read or the unread.

Each one takes its place in line;

Birdsong and petals are thrown into the air,

Scattered like sweets or confetti for bystanders;

Along the sprouting procession, there is a harbor of

Shade from the harsh, singed light spewed upon the

Growing march; it cools the rapid-fire production

Of a circus canopy spread across the tree tops,

Raised high on thick trunks, while wood-fiber sheets

Fan the air and stir the whispers 

Of what is to come before the next leaf

Opens, and each page read, instead of all others,

Collapses the wave. 

© cmheuer, 2015

BREAD CRUMBS

A pittance for the scavenger.

Scattered at the edge of the water to feed

Minnows that swarm in shallow depths;

Spread along the dirt path for birds to find;

Swept from the table or counter with a

Curved hand and flicked wrist.

Caught up in a twisted roll of the dice,

Scarcity asserts itself in bold deprivation;

Hunter-gatherers search for open landscapes

And the end of hunger in a noon or midnight

Crawl, flight, or stumble towards food

With desperate haste to break through the numbers’

Lock-jaw claim on the set of those who are starving,

Who scrounge for what can be found along the way,

Who battle against the odds,

Who covet tokens gleaned from stone.

While others bear arms;
stock guns and bombs;
take hoards;

destroy plows, herds, fields, and homes.

No more than a set of villains
who worship a dead-end set

and leave wanderers in stunned silence with

Bread crumbs in their pockets.

©cmheuer

TOTAL ECLIPSE

Candle-smoked pane of glass to view a ring of light;

A circus hoop on fire for a tiger to leap through;

Orbital motion foretold with atomic clock precision;

A new moon’s umbral shadow cast on earth

Tracks a round silhouette and cat eyes

Gathered in silence and darkness.

Minutes of time to see the paler fire wall,

Prominences and filaments,

Spewed out and seething,

An angry lion’s ruff;

An inferno around a black hole;

A sun eclipsed by a moon;

Reason eclipsed by myth.

Deep in the forest, light returns,

Cat eyes subside and slink away,

An unlit face slips out of sight

And in deep time will be too far away

To cover the sun.

© cmheuer, 2015

WASHING WINDOWS

Pollen streaked, dust smeared, and soot fingered

Until line of sight breaks, distance smudges, and

Vision reduces to a clouded lens.

Traveling light stops, and the past,

Thrown up against the glass like a bird in

Running flight, does not pass through.

Surged crest, fallen before the gaze connects,

Flounders unseen and lost at the edge of

Opaque squares set among the walls. 

Windows sketched in rooms and buildings,

Rag-washed and dried repetition clears a path

Through grime and soil for countless scenes. 

A long line of frames stored like album prints

Pocketed in clear, slip-in sheets for preservation

Grow pale and unfamiliar, disconnected.

The foreground uncoupled from the background

Until ladders are hauled out, cloths are gathered, and

Washing windows begins again. 

©  cmheuer, 2015

OUT OF MIND EXPERIENCE

Moonless and starless nights

Overcast with charred air,

Laid down in deep layers,

Give rise to a ghostly form

That hovers above my mind’s

Shrinking amorphous shape,

Sees insubstantial, sumless parts

Laid bare of their senses with a

Doppelganger’s swelling rise and reach

As it sifts into dark corners,

Stretches around my shrunken head,

Embodies a classic form with arms and legs

To walk toward a beacon of black light

While sleep waits in the wings.

© cmheuer@embarqmail.com

SUN

I can see the sun on the other side of the woods,

After the leaves fall, a growing flame,

Hidden for most of the year, draws a thin red line

Behind the tree trunks and as the night-sea crossing ends

Curls up and stares from low on the horizon

Into the windows (another version of yesterday’s light),

Red-eyed from a long unblinking night,

The solar wind casts shadows and polishes the walls with

Fleeting hand-glass images that disappear without a trace.

Tempting in its full-crested rise of hope,

To see all and to know all at the day’s break,

There is no Faustian bargain; only illusion reigns;

Omniscience hides behind a wall of light,

Behind trees of knowledge,

I see no more than a glimpse of all there is.

Dark hours and dreams vanish, forgotten.

The sun climbs trees in gusts of color,

Pen and pastel pencil ends sharpen the day,

Stream through blank spaces, yet

I know no more than I did yesterday

Even though I can see the sun rise

On the other side of the woods

After the leaves fall. 

© cmheuer, 2015 

COLD SPELL

Loose leaved trees and bushes,

Caught off guard by benumbed air,

As an image from a midnight dream

Intrudes upon the day and

Exchanges a sunlit memory with a shadow.

As if by hocus pocus a sudden adagio

Changes the light’s spin and

Conjures up giant spectacled wafts that

See up ahead and complete the shearing

And slow detachment of deciduous sheaths.   

Cold winds converse in hypnotic tones,

Recitations, and wheeling incantations

That lull the rooted into somnolence as they stand

On the face of the earth and begin their

Rapid descent into silence.

© cmheuer