Years ago I sat on a back deck watching elm seeds flying—like the opposite of snow—
The giant tree across the accidental courtyard of trees, the forest of trees in the vacant lot between the back deck and Buena Vista Street, shedding seeds into glorious six o’clock mid-Spring light—
I’d gotten up to get my camera to try to film it, and filmed it, but impossible with my little phone to capture the lit magic of it—
And having a thought about it now, or related to it, to seed-shedding and seed-flying and the benevolence of that scene and hour—
How peaceful and quiet it was, sitting on my back deck waiting for hummingbirds, watching seeds fly, the ghost flowers and ghost cat in a faded temporal ribbon flicking in and out—
The flowers unsown and the cat dead—the first a choice and the second having used up his measure.
I’d been readying
to move from one soil to another—from one city to another—
The videos weren’t very good, so I’d taken a couple of the hummingbird feeder with no hummingbird at it—imagined posting one with the caption, “Waiting’’—
Having a thought about it now—as with each seed, a light with limits—
Some glittering down in loops and spirals, some swift-sailing by—with what looked like purpose.
Death and all. What was the purpose. To grip down and awaken, the doctor said—
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