I picked hornbeams by Phelps gate, pinching
the distal-most stem between my index and my thumb
until the slender still-green twig pinched off. I tucked its winged nutlets and two leaves, still fresh,
between Hosseini’s pages, between Kabul and San Francisco. On a fresh gnatcatcher day, the sky shrouded in blue-gray pillows
a signal to spring-summer rain. Fog from early morning dissipates
like white dye in a forest-reflected lake.
The land reeks of rotting cherries, each rolling pit a stone crammed into the crevices of my eroding rubber sole.
There are only so many pebbles one hand can hold.
Only so many birds one hand—one stone—can throw.
I will not fly if you cannot hear me. There is sullenness in its tone.
One could mistake it for a mocking, but I see it more as an unkept plea. From the horny pinch of the dogwood leaf,
a droplet of last evening’s rain plips along with gravity in an unforced fall. It’s 5:52 when I cry and when the Harkness Bells recall
what I’ve fought not to recall.
In 1881, George Meredith rhymed after the flight of the lark.
In 1920, Ralph Vaughan Williams performed his piece in concert. I am sure the listeners cried. And in 2025, I spin in fledgling circles, half dazed but smiles. The pili that raise our skin, goosebumps in common parlance,
were distant machinery that raised our fur. The memory of fear
gave us space and air. I am a classical beast.
I pause to listen to the people falling in love, to sirens—always sirens—
and tree sounds. The air around me begins to rise
and the feather bumps of my forefathers stretch
as I take these hornbeam seeds
and begin to fly.
