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A Quiet Poem

When music is far enough away
the eyelid does not often move

and objects are still as lavender
without breath or distant rejoinder.

The cloud is then so subtly dragged
away by the silver flying machine

that the thought of it alone echoes
unbelievably; the sound of the motor falls

like a coin toward the ocean's floor
and the eye does not flicker

as it does when in the loud sun a coin
rises and nicks the near air. Now,

slowly, the heart breathes to music
while the coins lie in wet yellow sand.

-Frank O'Hara

So here's the news: I'm up at Necedah, with my boat and my bike, which means it's for keeps this time. We moved Monday afternoon, the chicks moved Tuesday. 3 interns and 11 endangered chicklets, living in the middle of a National Wildlife Refuge--I don't think we're in Baraboo any more! But at least we have a toilet, and, as of today, potable water (it ran red and smelled like pennies before).

What we don't have, in my understanding, is regular internet, unless the DSL cable strung up between the trees gets working (it doesn't work now). I'll probably have access about once a week at the public library, where I am now. But I'll keep you posted, and, on the bright side, if I'm updating at the library I should have access to plenty of poems.