Feast

your eyes on the gold

and silver of the morning

light in these trees,

your ears

on the rhythmic drumming

of the woodpecker, the funny laughter

of some little bird

snickering like a mischievous boy.

This is the balm of morning,

its healing salve,

everything in cahoots:

the dark purple

petunias shuddering

to the same pulse

as the clack of insects,

a persistent cheep

from the canyon below

punctuating at

precise intervals,

and when the leaf lets go

the branch, when the neighbor

sings out to his dog, the way

someone’s radio makes

a low undertone, or a cloud drifts

like a high soprano

over the whole arrangement,

even the infinitely slow

bass carillon of new

growing trees is part

of this harmony; nothing mars

the perfection

of the score, nothing

dampens the day.

©Maxima Kahn, previously published in Westview and The Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry