Bedroom (In the Ear)

transient forest beyond

drums rollingwindows quivering

hold a history

the other side their dark glistening

a forest listening to beyond

and inward

( fallen from suncrisp sapling

leaflets filled

an old stone well

where buried . . .

as the oftensong

an elusive child

rings

through the walls of snail shellsruns

through furrows that run up each trunk

( when a tree falls in the forest . . .

and her white dress

vanished behind a tree

and the tree fell

and she wasn’t there

a deaf man used to hunt such children

with his trumpet

stalk the stalks with blazing

( creekbed

monkshood praying for a flood . . .

in wake of a bark from its brass mouth

and lasted the moments he sought her

one song then another

( o the seedless timber scream

like injured rabbits . . .

until there was no one

left to singbut one last girlhidden in limbs

of one last tree

so he played a berceuse in cerulean

until its roots burst into flameand as the raucous

corvids flew away to pass away

( what birds above

the sound

a hundred rusted hinges

holding

garden gates the ghosts

unlatched

that open in the wind . . .

the girl with the voice of a vibraphone

and the trumpet

never played again

but even the silence of a room

filled with oscillating fanviolin passing through

its walls

feels like aftertaste

but does not fade

as trees scratch the windows

at one the other

listens to the inner workings of a pillow

a valleyful of children screaming

as if from deep within the ground

a distance its screams are a whisper

goodnight

but clear as the billowing of trees

( goodnight . . .