It Happens

 

what brings you to me

of all people 

you say you happen to be

in the neighborhood

aloneness comforts me more

than any company

you wish to visit over tea biscuits

impress me with your interest in

all things japanese

sharing then you are like a tiny sea 

caught in the screaming violence

of two competing winds

useless contradictions

arriving you are a colder stranger than imagined

unsmiling unshaven holding a warm beer

out of nowhere you say

a heron great stands in a shallow pool

is the origin of her impossible stillness

an egret passing in front

of a blazing feathered sun becomes

her wondrous invisibility

you then announce the yellow moon has shed

its skin for the first time in the history

of man

you demand I look harder

and see the obvious

I see only blackness upon 

more blackness

he says be damned 

it is miraculous

the heron reflects on this

leans imperceptibly

in its rippled wings

an egret landing delicately

black legs whispering down into low reeds

I wading ever so slowly 

 into the skin of

the now

yellow

glowing

pool

 

JPPestana

It Happens

3.27.2022