qarrtsiluni

What did I think the hectic bats
and nighthawks were doing,
swooping and skimming overhead,
if not feasting on the invisible?
Air is not nothing, and at night
thickens like soup with moths, gnats,
sticky-shelled beetles, junebugs,
mosquitoes, midges, black flies,
and the tiny specks we call no-see-ums
that flit right through a windowscreen.

Stand still long enough, and you’ll hear
the true music of the spheres:
a million tiny wingbeats, rustle
of grubs and beetles in the leaf mat,
tremble of antennae and eyelash legs,
the minuscule wind of earwigs,
spiders spinning their convolutions,
caterpillars munching grass blades,
mosquitoes with tiny engines revved.

Now, the glitter of a cattail stand
blossoms with fireflies, all those bellies
aglow with lust in this humid air,
those sudden constellations
fading and re-forming all night long —
a Morse my mind can read
all it wants while my belly glows.

by David Graham

Download the MP3

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::