THE ESSENTIALS OF THE IDYLL

Artus Scheiner

THE ESSENTIALS OF THE IDYLL

It is sweetest right next to the sky.

Just before you cross the line.

The air is limpid.

The sea has forgotten

About waves for a few hours.

Words have tracks

As we talk.  They look

Like tiny wrens, full of

Close shadings, a bright beak

Flashes; hard to see when

We’re in the woods.

Nothing has a surface.

We are inside of everything.

I was hoping you wouldn’t

Get this far with this poem.

I was hoping the images would

Continue on their own and make

A story for you, elicit a sensation

That would capture you,

Provide some transportation.

Instead, here I am alone

With you, amazed at the color

Of the sky, the way the breeze tricks

It’s way through Summer,

The kind of quiet, working

Like this precipitates.

Before you go, one Summer when

I was about eight years old,

My father stopped the car as dark 

Was coming.  While the children and

my mother watched, he walked into a

Small woods near Lake Ontario

To catch fireflies for us to see up close.

The woods were a great flashing field

Filled with millions of lights, millions.

I have never seen anything like that

Evening ever since then, until now.

THE SWARMING

It is nice to see that 12 people follow this site.  Hello friends.

THE SWARMING

The jungle was already torn when we arrived.

One could see into the gash for an extremely

Long way.  It looked like an ancient ritual

Might look where the celebrant reached into

The chest of the victim and pulled the heart,

Still beating, from the body and held it high

For all to see.

The birds were the first to exit the cover.

Their cries were a voluble explosions,

Chatter and freakish noises that permeated

The air and then the skin, flooding the heart

With the anguish of its sounds.

The rainbows of feathers had no apparent

Order.  There was only a cacophony of color.

No flocks here.  Only terribly frightened birds

Swirling from the deepest parts of the jungle.

We retreated to our vehicles when the insects

Flowed from the great forest.  It was too much 

To absorb; the sounds, the metallic voices, 

The unmistakable hum of millions upon millions 

Of insects pouring through the opening and making

Tsunami as they coursed across the land.  We were unable

To even see anything from our cars, so covered they were

With the seething bodies of endless tiny creatures.

The washed over us and rejoined the jungle behind us.

The greater animals followed not concerned at all

That we were there.  The sullen coughs and roars,

The screams and calling of all species filing past,

Not intending harm, just moving, moving to leave

This sorry intrusion into another world, not theirs,

Not ours.

We were to follow them.  As they passed we started

Our engines and formed a close pack, growling and

Sliding on the boggy ground.  They hadn’t seen 

The last of us.  We were witness to what they did.

We would return, all of us.  All of us. The planet still

Whirling as if directed by some mad force intent

On telling each of us how to behave, what to do.

THE PORCH IN MIDSUMMER (world and idea)

THE PORCH IN MIDSUMMER

(world & idea )

A jar full of red flowers.

It was the way light

Moved across them but 

Oh, the time was dead

And oh, the seeing was dead

And oh, there was no way

Left to focus and Oh, what

Was there to say coming

Home?  “I could not see

The red flowers and now

This camera too is broken

And I wonder if we can see

Anything, anymore.”  All that

Was left took years to pull

Itself together, slightly out

Of focus, slightly overburdened

With the marks paint uses

To describe light, it sits there,

A beautiful thing, arcing

This way and that, between

What was and is, between words

And image, between world and ideas.