John J. Audubon - Anathallo

Most of us have heard crashing so loud

We hear a constant wave that spins between our temples piercing content with

its sound

We lost the 20,000s several years ago

Gradually we feel it washing blank the range in which we hold the things we know

Put your ear to a hummingbird’s wing

Place the hum against the ring

Listen to its still and violent motion making

Treading water

We’re dense waves

We don’t float

Our stories all just sink below the mess of wake the millions of paddled palms

our cupped hands make (5x)

Overhead the goose flies low, necks curve darted straight as compass needle,

dislocated from his mate

He found her body rafting toward the mouth of the river when she disappeared

with the current underneath the tree trunk bridge

Out toward the mouth

Out with the spilling water

We saw it coming like a spirit soars directed

Gunshot smoke and a sinking thereafter

He fell fast to the ocean while the red painted feathers floated down

John Audubon thought about the wiring as he swam toward the twisted neck and

the broken boat body bobbed

Examining the belly for the bullet’s tiny piercing, he cried, «Oh!»

When a secret fluttered, a migrant hummer unlatched its grip

Overhead his heart sped spooked and we splashed as the gail swung cold and some

fish folded in the crest slap

It lapped at our heads, but we received it like a reprimand

We were too consumed by motion to perceive or understand

John J. Audubon, his gifted replication

Painted with precision, perfect vision like the shot stain

And the whole world swam in deaf anticipation til the goose fell like a shed

shell from which the humming secret sprang