Somewhat Gray and Graceful by Michael Anania
Left behind. Consider the frayed
horizon and the likelihood
of birds. Someone in a photograph
glances upward and flight
extrapolates itself as a story
proposed by one thing and then
another, each surface accomplished,
each act a definition, the self
in a prospect of birds, flight
arrived at in the unconsidered
assumption of flight, finches
sprung forward and eased against
the edge of sight, the improbable
reach of this and that, somewhat gray
and graceful, doves in their white rush
like breath anticipating speech.
Incidental Music
for A.K. Ramanujan, 1929-1994
i.
stylus bobbing
above dark vinyl
like a dragonfly,
Mozart, then Horace Silver,
their bright waters,
onyx spun across shale;
it must have been
the basement
used record store
on Hyde Park Blvd,
hubcaps and wheel-lugs
at eye-level; cities
seem so purposeful,
their musics half-formed,
urgent as traffic;
lake effect snow–
the day not quite cold
enough–brightens
the pavement only
momentarily, laughter
and exhaust plumes,
their sudden clarities
passing; across the Midway
science and industry twang
ii.
what flowers should we
drift along this course
of dampened asphalt
in your memory, Raman?
mullai, kurñci, maratum,
neytal, each blossom
a precinct in song:
forest, mountain,
clear stream or dark sea?
and what transpires there,
a bird among the millet,
peppervine and palmyra,
their moistened palms
extended, fresh blossoms
and finger cymbals?
in archaic Tamil, then,
“what he said,” “what she said,”
generations of poets masked
along the stations of song;
nearby the city’s improbable
flock of brooding parakeets
stirs a sudden iridescence
above bare box elder
and salt-nettled pines
iii.
the faith we have
in song exceeds its
melodies, notes struck
in speech we only
imagine speaking;
music surged then
hand raised in breath,
stylus fingered above
syllables, not feeling
merely, but how we take
its measure, pronounce,
inadequately, patai,
the fifth region, flowerless,
a place of separation, note
held against emptiness,
a saxophone sighs, steel
brush on brass, the beat
extended, patai patai
petals opening iridescent
birdflowers city singers
are blowing in their hands
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