Two Octets from Late April

28th Ave Coincidence of Opposites Octet

(4/26/17)

across this one page of today the letters

for sunlight scribbled in the cherry petals’

flutter & spin, the walk light flashing, a plane

sailing west between black power lines & white

cirrus spindrift, steel-gray sedan’s back window

mottled with blossoms at the intersection,

the stoplight changing—black sign rising by that

blue bus stop bench, a white heart at its center

◦           ◦            ◦

Greenwich Ave Transfiguration Octet

(4/27/17)

the maple’s new leaves carry a charge of light,

as if offshoots of the same April air poured

into the tulips’ purple cups; the same air

the rosemary branches reach through; the silence

of bluebells, dry song of bamboo wind chimes on

the porch in a breeze I hadn’t noticed; air

currents rippling with geese transformed to trumpets,

their big formation flying into the sun

Jack Hayes

© 2017