Sunday, August 9, 2009

Fiddlehead

Between the clouds
shaped into leaping terriers
or fat hippos drinking long from
a river of sky -

fly little hidden time machines
stamped with different dates
exploring currents of past regrets
or future hopes, each one unzipped
spilling secrets into ears of lonely
lovers, humming songs of unborn
dreams held too close in the crook
of a mother's arms.

They will only reach the stars by thinking
there is no distance between them;
a quick turn towards a twinkle
earth shrinks into a fiddlehead curled
tight into the shape of its own gravity.

1 comment:

Bill S. said...

A few minor suggestions -

'Hidden between the clouds
shaped like leaping terriers
or fat hippos drinking long from
a river of sky
fly little time machines'

I would lose the 'stamped with different dates' because it doesn't add anything and you say all that needs to be said by mentioning the time machine and following with 'exploring currents of past regrets'

The first sentence of the final stanza is a bit unwieldy and too prosaic and maybe a bit cliched. Maybe you could condense that with reference to closing the distance between stars with the or through the current of thought or something similar. It would echo the currents of past regrets earlier in the poem.

The ending is lovely - like the idea of the earth as a fiddlehead -it pulls the whole poem together very nicely (no pun intended)