Snowies and Blues

Where there is no accumulation, laced and soft, come flocks
of snowies to shrub pine, wetlands and dock.

Is it a wish to speak a season’s complete possibility or make
familiar an inclination to leave? Snowy egrets could be milk or paint
egrets, trillium or salt egrets. But they descend softly,

long necks and wing fans. Each one a blizzard
in a nickname. Is it their lurking extinction, their long,

millennial disintegration that turns blue whales to blues
on biologist tongues? When they call it tracking blues–passing
sonar over the hemispheres one by one and ticking off
fewer mammals than a population can trust, do they know

they’re speaking double? Whose blues permeate this air,
whose mammal memory haunts farthest?

Brother, Sister

Where there is no accumulation of trust, but snowy pines,
salt on the tongue, do we turn away too soon, shiver and frown?

I think we mean to track in memory on the milk white carpet
if only to be reminded our feet wear the same size.

Whose blues populate the past, whose wails have haunts in
practiced arguments? That’s how you see it, he says,
with a soft, descending snow on the line like the memory
of a flock landing. Can’t feel the air permeated with bird,

can’t hear how he sees it. One by one, the seasons tick by.
Fewer reasons to call. Blues travel in herds and live all over this indigo
planet. But they keep to their hemispheres, maybe shocked by
the meridians, maybe uncertain of welcome.
Have we left or just not crossed?

Endangered

Where there is no dock, no boat, no blizzard, just sun
haunting the body of water, I heard him. That’s how you see it.

No sound like the answer that does not give.

Cows and whales have the same rib cages, shelters for similar
hearts. And driving the Pacific Coast Highway, I saw the
reminder with cows in the field, blue beyond. It seems we are

close. But can’t hear the words he’d rather not say. Can’t see,
can’t feel, can’t smell, can’t taste the same meal. No dock,
no boat, no blizzard, just sun haunting the body blue.

Give me some salt to water my mouth. I’m feeling extinct.

Copyright © 2005 Amy Holman All rights reserved
from Wait For Me, I'm Gone
Dream Horse Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission