Metaphor
By Paul Cameron Brown
There is a star near
the hinge of planets,
a barn under
a cow's lick of moon -
plausible people
moving thru an
airless universe.
Pay attention to the frond of lilac
. . . limestone troughs upon which
thickets of Indian scalp &
devil's paintbrush soar
to the horizon
and, afterwards,
little creeks run
with the sparrows of evening time
in step to tiny boatmen
that echo enamelled snails
from the very consonants of earth.
Rustle of leaves,
some might argue
breathless gasps
to intone the savagery
of little seasonal voices
cut off
mid-stream.
A spate of bees,
early colonizers
deflower blossoms and
strip-mine lava butter of erupting
hard-shell tulips:
such careless penetrations -
volcanic intrusions entomb
their hairy bodies caked with
the iron-lung of blackened soot petals,
each a cough drop
on the heaving breath
of a declining afternoon.