Mary Kathryn Jablonski

One long heat wave

The year after the robber bees ravaged
the hives, they were left empty. And it was

a hollow feeling to go near the sullen
box. Instead in spring, little orchard bees

pollinated the apples and the pears,
and later large, fuzzy bumblers wove

their way among blueberry blossoms.
There were ground bees and sweat bees and mud

wasps and flies of every kind, and in
the flowers, clearwings and hummingbirds,

monarchs, swallowtails and sulphurs. Dragonflies
clung to each other. But in the small white

clover covering the grass, not one honey bee –
from anywhere. Mean white-faced hornets in late

raspberries. And in the early goldenrod, nothing.
Who to tell of the secret grief that makes the hair

go swiftly gray? The gaze go distraite? This
otherworldly summer, one constant heat wave

of oppressive days, is nearly over. He and the bees
would have loved it, parting meadows, making

his way to the cool trout streams, half-naked
among them, dark as the copper of an old penny.

Map at the End of the World

Again this summer Canadian wildfires cloak the Green
Mountains in a noxious haze, and it is hard to breathe. I go
to the places where we used to go. Like you, they were never
mine. Why do they seem so diminished? Overgrown,
destroyed? The lily farmer died; his plots have gone to
weeds. Brief color here and there where once waved acres
in bloom. The Mettawee Nursery has been sold. It’s closed
today. The hollow tree on the trail at Merck Forest has been
cut. Still somehow, the vibration is palpable. The trout leap
and leap as if they’d rather fly, while the red tail dives.
What is real? Are you here? Were you ever here? My eyes
pry the atoms seeking you; everything dissolves. The light
is just too much. The color of birdsong, too bright. The wind
trails dragonflies, bees, whispers. The weight of you,
weightless one. Send me the darkness of winter. Velvet.
Cloaking. The Darkness Byron knew. I can miss your
mathematic logic, your inverted syntax, unnatural in
the natural world, drowned in romance no more. Do not leave
me here in the glare of perishable beauty. Did you invent
this? Did I? The old map reads: “Beyond this place there be
dragons” — in the air, the water, on land: fire within fire.

 

Fireworks in the Bardo

It is July 2nd, 9pm, and suddenly a cannon roars.
A pause, and then, again. The windows rattle,
the door shakes in its frame as though someone
is pounding to get in. An earthquake? The one
beneath my hand is suddenly beneath the bed.
Peer through the blinds and the sky is on fire!
Deafening battlements continue. Have you read
about this in the Book of the Dead ? You, water; I am
air. The distractions we must pass through as the elements
collapse, assaulting the senses? How long will this go on?
Will the glass hold? Will the creature return? Will it
happen again July 4th? Be reminded in your terror,
this is but preparation. Noiseless falls the foot of time...
Illusion, illusion, projection of the mind.

 

NOTE
"Noiseless falls the foot of time, Which only treads on flowers." —
attributed to W. H. SPENCER
(Found inscribed on a sundial in Congress Park, Saratoga Springs, NY)

 

Eta Carinae Nebula / The Keyhole

There is a keyhole in the sky, mirror
of your keyhole. You might see it as a way

out. Press your ear against it. Listen.
Can you close one eye, peer through it with the other,

or have you heard too much? Have you seen your fill
already, coming to this place, wishing

to be deaf, wishing to be blind? Is the darkness
now complete? Can you make yourself small enough

to fit through the keyhole to the next place?
And do you know it will be better there?

 

Artist/poet Mary Kathryn Jablonski is most recently author of Sugar Maker Moon from Dos Madres Press. Her poems and collaborative video/poems have appeared in literary journals, exhibitions, and screenings, including Atticus Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Poetry Film Live, Poetry Ireland Review, Quarterly West, Verse Daily, and Salmagundi. She was awarded a NYSCA Individual Artist's Grant for a video/poem "chapbook" and has been Senior Editor in Visual Art at Tupelo Quarterly and contributor at Numèro Cinq.