Gifted with a single sense
she heard the earthworm turning
in its cot and earthen bedclothes,
turning water into passage.
She heard bacterial operas
with their casts of trillions.
Not without effort she heard
a tap root inching towards Assyria,
gutting the planet, sipping at soil,
embracing dolomite then splitting it.
In the way atoms split and how they scream,
their pains remarkably immeasurable.
Without eyes or mouth she’s heard
a wildflower coax a honeybee.
Closer, closer, it seemed to say.
You are in want and I am plenty.
*
Bruce McRae, a Canadian musician currently residing on Salt Spring Island BC, is a multiple Pushcart nominee with over 1,500 poems published internationally in magazines such as Poetry, Rattle and the North American Review. His books are ‘The So-Called Sonnets (Silenced Press); ‘An Unbecoming Fit Of Frenzy; (Cawing Crow Press) and ‘Like As If” (Pski’s Porch), Hearsay (The Poet’s Haven).
Bruce McRae recommends “Bluebird” by Charles Bukowski (read by Tom O’Bedlam).
