The garden is busy today. A robin
and a wren appear to be nesting.
The noisy blackbirds certainly are.
We are preparing for the partial eclipse
with the pinhole cameras we have made
from paper plates. In the event –
on the first day of spring – the sun is veiled,
as if by wisps of smoke, so we can glance
directly at the moon’s crossing, at this
dark geometry. There is excitement
in neighbouring gardens – and, over the road,
from the Pilates class at the Methodist’s.
*
Today we drive along the coast and see
the high tides yesterday’s configuration
partly caused – a spring tide in every sense;
water levels covering the stanchions
of a pier, lapping the top of a quay.
At the turn, the sea leaving the straits
hits the sea entering. A cormorant
twirls gracelessly in the rushing, tumbling race,
a dinghy with an outboard wallows,
the pilot bobbing like a marionette –
aware of the swift calculus of the waves.
*
How we gaggle like geese for, rightly,
a wonder or a marvel or a portent!
A feather falls. Intuitively,
we revere such elegant algebra.
By David Selzer