(Click here to follow Pavel's ongoing epic poem “The Shoulder of the Sun.” You may visit Pavel's website at http://www.greyowlpress.com.)
by Pavel Chichikov
Into the forest, not too far –
The hook pine knows it, keeps away
Watches out toward Mount Lindsay
But here lianas, strangling figs
Coil around the buttresses
Spiders string their sticky lyres
Scrub wrens running underneath
The snakeskin shedding of the trees
Hear the strumming – all are pleased
Even on one mountain, old
Is this notation of the code
And they can read and still be read
The satin bower bird loves blue –
Tears the strip of sky away
To make a sacrament of day
Consumed at night within the nest –
So should we before the west
Drinks the crimson blood of rest
