JOHNMICHAEL SIMON POETRY

My back resting
against a knotty trunk,
I observe how
powder-pink and cerise
recollections
on bell-like petals
sprout on dainty stalks

of cyclamens
blooming under oak branches
in northern Galilee
whose borders protrude
like fingers
on the green map
of this Middle Eastern
corner, bunched between
the sprawl of Europe
and the dark shroud
over Arabia
dividing the globe
into two hemispheres
night’s shadow lapping
into curving sharp day
hanging like a dark green
ball in orbit

I observe
the broad stretch of spangles
spanning from nebula
to remote nebula
burning in empty nothingness
quantum leaps of light away
speeding endlessly
in spirals of black and yellow
like a bee hovering
from powder-pink cyclamen
to cerise cyclamen
waving on their green stalks
in the forest
spreading a field of color
an eiderdown of
flowering goblets
over everything in sight