Lawrence Bridges
To the Ear
Morning starts with held breath.
A wooden vent-cap taps the rhythm
of a frigid breeze. My clock tries
to warn of seconds until it perishes,
but its warning destroys the quiet
and reminds that it's a day of things undone.
The bouncing vent accelerates to infinity
then stops. This is like what time is for us,
faster, faster, then darkness, then stars.
A lonely night flight from Hawaii approaches,
blinking silently over water to no one, a siren
on the highway below the bluffs bends
through bumps of wind, warps, buckles, deforms.
The tapping vent, loyal to each gust,
declares its science of cause and effect
bouncing like a marble on a granite table.
The wind whistles for one last show
of engines starting, cars passing our house
and entering a roadway, the tapping, the wind,
clear air in December, now a band, now
inside a storm all white with noise, to the ear.
A wooden vent-cap taps the rhythm
of a frigid breeze. My clock tries
to warn of seconds until it perishes,
but its warning destroys the quiet
and reminds that it's a day of things undone.
The bouncing vent accelerates to infinity
then stops. This is like what time is for us,
faster, faster, then darkness, then stars.
A lonely night flight from Hawaii approaches,
blinking silently over water to no one, a siren
on the highway below the bluffs bends
through bumps of wind, warps, buckles, deforms.
The tapping vent, loyal to each gust,
declares its science of cause and effect
bouncing like a marble on a granite table.
The wind whistles for one last show
of engines starting, cars passing our house
and entering a roadway, the tapping, the wind,
clear air in December, now a band, now
inside a storm all white with noise, to the ear.
Lawrence Bridges's poetry has appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, and The Tampa Review. He has published three volumes of poetry: Horses on Drums, Flip Days, and Brownwood with Red Hen Press.