Everything We Always Knew Was True. James Galvin

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ whirled to the north

      And came down

      Like a comet’s tail,

      Then like a cloud of frost,

      Slowly lofting,

      A fuzzy galactic avatar.

      Then we could tell it was birds,

      Wings set, hovering

      And flipping like pages

      Of news in wind.

      Then it was

      White pelicans

      With nine-foot wingspans,

      And we saw the black-tipped

      Remiges

      Of the largest of boreal birds

      Coming to rest

      On our modest lake

      In their ordained sortie

      From Florida, the Gulf Coast,

      And Panama,

      To their home in British Columbia.

      It was a pod,

      Then a squadron,

      Then a scoop,

      As their wings became parachutes,

      And they water-skied in.

      There must have been a thousand of them,

      Veering and banking

      To avoid collisions.

      Some luffed,

      Waiting their turn.

      It took an hour

      For them all to come down

      And fold their wings

      And huddle in the middle

      Like a melting ice floe.

      They bore spikes for beaks,

      And their necks hooked

      Like shepherds’ crooks.

      And then I thought

      Of the blind man

      I’d seen in the market

      In a small village

      In Italy,

       Where this sort of thing can occur,

      His open palm of bills,

      All folded and tucked

      Like origami,

      Creased in different shapes

      (Someone must have done this

      For him),

      Triangles, rectangles, squares,

      So he could tell their

      Denominations.

      A door opened,

      And a wind scattered his currency.

      All the people knelt

      To gather his geometries

      And return them

      To his hand.

      Snow

      It was snowing nurses.

      The blond ones

      From ICU.

      They wore those perky

      Little nurse hats,

      White coats.

      They wore surgical

      Masks and carried

      IV needles

      And bags of morphine.

      They had sponges

      In their pockets.

      They landed gently

      On the lawn,

      And looked around,

      Not knowing

      What to do.

      It was snowing

      Polar bears,

      Who loved us for

      Our temporary mercy.

      They landed gently

      On the lawn,

      On all fours,

      But then stood

      On their hind legs

      And sniffed all around,

      Confused.

      It was snowing sawdust

      From the Amish coffin shop.

      It was snowing shuttlecocks

      That looked like pastries

      Or tiny volcanoes.

      At least they looked at home

      Lying on the grass.

      It was snowing pastries.

      It was snowing swaddled babies.

      They landed gently.

      It was snowing wan

      Corpses in dress whites

      That had started out

      As babies with zero

      Knowledge of pastries,

      Or shuttlecocks,

      Or sawdust,

      Or polar bears,

      And СКАЧАТЬ