Simultaneous Contrast

The wind is blowing
In the direction
The heifers face.

Indoors and kitchen-warm, I assume.

Here, my man’s high levels
Of natural attention turn me

On: carrot rounds,
Slivered green and yellow rinds
Of half-mooned squash,
Smirks of red and yellow
Sweet peppers, onion piled
Purple on bamboo board.

Each one equally machine-thin
By his blade and angles, his
Down-neck, his black-brown wrist.

This isn’t perfection
Or anxious precision
Or fear of variability—
His sustained vision
Of what is simple
In hand, moving.

Before us, our window.

Without camera,
This is what I have:

White-tipped, green t-posts
Holding up paneled squares
Of last week’s goat fence,
Standing as receding elevens
Framing unplanted earth.

Behind this: weathered electric pole
Parallel to seven wind-torn elms,
Evenly spaced like a plan
For solitude and shade.

The fourth tree’s top: broken off,
Hung up in the arms of the next,
Twenty feet up, parallel to the ground,
The wind’s tori gate.

Behind this: evenly dispersed herd
Of red heifers, everyone mouth-to-earth,
Bowing to green, everyone facing south.

The retina competes with itself
To have it all. We can’t help but stare,
Unaware of this registration
Of beauty born of visual distress,
The vibration of complements.

Don’t look for symbolism here.
This is about irresistible looking,

The way space plays,
Moving hues between
Your eyes and the horizon.

Soon, while stir-fry waits
For acini di pepe to swell,
The cattle turn, everyone facing north.
Direction is not always about wind.

My lover says they are eating
Their way to bed.

2014