Forms Most Beautiful
Inside you, intricate bird of glass,
is an egg of glass.
And inside that egg, another bird of glass,
and on and on—
egg and bird smaller
and smaller, until we come to where a tiny particle
of sand was first
charged with fire and born a crystal.
Now, are you ready to fly?
*
Look close.
You’ll see the feather in the fish scale,
the eye in the antenna, the finger in the fin.
So now here we all are:
scarab beetles
rolling dung balls, snowy egrets spearing minnows.
giant squids tangling with sperm whales—
with every microbe
and millionaire striving, striving.
*
How many extinctions—
spindly spiders, glowing fish, scarlet frogs, pygmy
mammoths—were there?
And where
have they gone?
They have drifted down on the ocean
of time
like immortal flowers.
They are swimming inside us.
Heavenly Souls
As he drives his pick-up truck
by the lake, glancing to his right,
an osprey,
loosed from the top of
a telephone pole, dives on the choppy water
like a collapsing parachute, then rises
with something in its talons,
struggling—it’s
slippery, his heart, don’t drop it.
*
The sandhill cranes come at sunset,
gliding down to roost
in the red reflecting pool spread at your feet.
Then pairs begin their dance—
bowing to each other, spearing the sky
with sharp beaks, flapping their wings and leaping
in the air—these gods
of the Pleistocene, shyly reaching out to you
from their lake of fire.
*
And to you, sparrow, brown skulker
in the bush, lover
of the horizontal, scratcher in the dirt,
eater of loose seeds and spiders—
low conniver, cheeper, tail wagger, cricket
killer, popper up and downer—
defender of your domain
in this field, escaper of attention—
if we fail now we fail for you too.
The Tender Ghost
We want it to be out there
so badly,
that veiled something,
and think we have glimpsed it, once
or twice or three times
as a dust devil rising out of a dry lake bed,
or a wisp from a cold pond at dawn, or a ripple
in a field of green wheat.
*
Could the iridescent flash
of a Blue Morpho,
flittering in a shaft of sunlight
in the Panama jungle,
be a bit of blue shining through
a tiny tear
in the fabric of Einstein’s space-time?
Is God blue?
*
Or is God in Nature?
This morning a blood red rose
has gained the air
in my garden.
Put your finger here…
bring your hand and put it in my side.
You reach out, touch
the unfurled petals.
George Young is an internal medicine physician and has had two full length collections of poetry published: Spinoza’s Mouse, Washington Prize given by Word Works, and The Astronomer’s Pearl, Violet Reed Haas Prize given by Snake Nation Press. Retired now, I enjoy traveling (to add to my life-bird list) studying philosophy and reading great poetry.
The Tender Ghost
We want it to be out there
so badly,
that veiled something,
and think we have glimpsed it, once
or twice or three times
as a dust devil rising out of a dry lake bed,
or a wisp from a cold pond at dawn, or a ripple
in a field of green wheat.
*
Could the iridescent flash
of a Blue Morpho,
flittering in a shaft of sunlight
in the Panama jungle,
be a bit of blue shining through
a tiny tear
in the fabric of Einstein’s space-time?
Is God blue?
*
Or is God in Nature?
This morning a blood red rose
has gained the air
in my garden.
Put your finger here…
bring your hand and put it in my side.
You reach out, touch
the unfurled petals.