Tagore Variations
4
You say that some go south listening
for the light to ask the river its last
story, then the sea. Instead, we stay here
asking the husk of the swallowtail.
And who answers back? That’s one way
to imagine it: through a pattern of twigs
wind and vacancy beside the water. Late
night, in a city, shadows pass beneath
streetlights—and we are loved like
strangers there love the young violinist
behind the window’s curtain, the care
she takes to bow each mistake, to hear
her fingers slip toward what they know.
And not knowing you calls me now
into cottonwoods at the simple edge of
the river—darkness swings from branches
like a crippled bat, blooming in
its crooked flight. The river meanders
you say. Late leaves, unrelenting scribes:
tell us of the caterpillar’s approach
to loss, how it closes the gaps of shade
around it, trades gravity for a black
flake stamped with light.