The Gyre
In Sun’s domain, our Earth’s crust
spins on a molten filling
with a ball-bearing core.
Now and then, Earth’s core
reverses in the filling
beneath its familiar crust,
yet here we stand. Our own crusts
barely conceal the filling
of magma around each core.
Are we helpless to the core
when magma overfills us,
spilling through our crust
as temperatures rise? Crusted,
we can’t deny what fills
and simmers in our core
of knowledge, till that core
percolates through our filling
and out of our stubborn crust.
The Middle Pages
Simplicity, if it exists,
is a singular orderly rung
on the ladder of unruly numbers
that connect engraved papers unsprung
to advance and recede at once
from a signature’s inner sheet,
where consecutive pages meet
as a harmony buried in dissonance.
Simplicity, if it exists,
is a moment of peace amid chaos,
a leaf among grains in a dog’s fur,
a rose amid leaves on wet crabgrass,
a teardrop concealed in a cobweb,
an owlet revealed on a tree branch.
What notes will it call when you find it
still struggling out of the leaves’ clench
to see you, who’ll swear it is perfect?
Its small self unperched becomes music,
our song, if we save it.
Launch
Upward and out: this is the path
to free a jammed finger, shoulder or neck,
inspire a fledgling with ways to launch,
even a sleepyhead lazing in bed—
upward of course, then out of the nest,
feet on the smooth, cool, solid floor,
coffee or tea to summon the mind
and will to stretch, flex, balance, walk
upward and out, into the crowd.
Muscles and brain remember the path
of freedom that seems so basic, natural,
forgettable.
Claudia Gary
