Poem: PDX 2007.01.15 (2007.01.15)

2007.01.15 PDX

the Bird lifts up and the light rolls
Up and off the NoPo plateau in the foreground.
Into a trench of non-light where
The Willamette cuts a meager gorge
Between downtown and foreground.

Heat rings from the engine stream blur
Out a line in the picture between planes
A squint of sorts-
As if you could squint out 12.5% of your
Vision in a straight line…just the eyelash.

Rising land forms-
Mt. Tabor, Powell Butte, and others
Leave dark footprints upon
The monochromatic two dimensional grid world of a city
Topography arises only over intervals of viewing
Where successive images do not correlate in 2D
a dimension is flushed out

Mt. Hood is somewhere here in the night
Gazing eye level with us
Down upon the city.
His bulbous hot tempered wife
Sleeps in the other room,
Plotting between the seams of trees.

The ponds of Sauvie Island sang today
As we stood timid toed upon them
Peering down into the reeds
Where the wapato hide
Where they have always hidden,
Even before the salmon.

Frost bitten sticks and stones resonated like electrons
Just enough for my human ears
[ f = (0.383/r)*((T/D)^2)]
Each pond has a different voice and we listen.

In a Cajun café beneath Morrison we listen,
To the talk of our table mates, mouths full of the pacific northwest
Half eaten meals
escape in foil sculpture
When is wasting saving and saving wasting.

Its night save for a heavy vestibule of clouds,
Alive with the cities omni-present day.
The 2D grid peeks out silently between the iced zippers
At the sky print of Helens,
who is now awake while her husband slumbers.