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Clank clank
Apartments flicker by
Clank clank
A lonely fence vigilant
Clank clank
In a tunnel and out
Clank clank
A man, hands in pockets
Clank clank
Rocks, moss, embankment
Clank clank
Ceramic seagulls alight
Clank clank
Flittering flag in a cul-de-sac
Clank clank
Tree marshaled trail
Clank clank
Electric blue auto shop
Clank clank
Limp lobes gaugeless
Clank clank
Downtown arms open wide

-T. Weeks
(A response to “BOOK XVII. BIRDS OF PASSAGE”)

Dry sand sifts
Finding the cracks
Between cupped fingers

Sand underwater
An apparition
Flowing heedless away

Damp sand
Piled molded
A vision, a castle, a medium

-T. Weeks

I see the object before me
The form, the menace, the color.
A familiar word surfaces.
I’ve seen many similar objects.

Cactus.

The object I see and the word
Tumble together
In gleeful juxtaposition.
Losing track, I ask myself,
Which is which?
Then I remember.
Silly me.
Metaphors can be tricky like that.

-T. Weeks
(A response to “BOOK XVI: A Song of the Rolling Earth)

I must be everywhere,
Mulled the boy,
When I arrive where I’m going
I always find myself there.

I must know everything,
He chuckled,
I’m not aware of anything
That I don’t know about.

It felt good to be so important.

-T. Weeks
(A response to “BOOK XV: A Song for Occupations”)

Deep within the ant hill
In a burrowed branch of earth
A bustling knot of workers
Brush assuring antennae –
Behold our sophistication,
Structures skyward reaching
500 times our own height,
Sprawling highways snaking
across the earth we see,
Surely the queen of queens
Has deemed it so.

-T. Weeks
(A response to “BOOK XIV: Song of the Redwood-Tree”)

I see a large green sign ahead,
Lonely structure by a lonely highway,
Bold message in white reflective letters:
Coffin Road.
1 mile.
At my velocity less than a minute passes
Then the exit to Coffin Road passes.
I speed on towards Kennewick.
My company has grown.
Three new companions help the time pass.
Whose coffin? Whose road? Whose sign?

-T. Weeks
(A response to “BOOK XIII: Song of the Exposition)

Who bestowed majesty on these mountains?
Did I miss the parade and uniforms,
Rites fossilized in eroding generations?

The reverence I feel for those snowy peaks,
Was it learned from heavy handed magistrates,
By threat of punishment with respect demanded?

And my excitement to see the looming ridges,
Was that planted by a looping viral jingle,
A campaign to woo my lucrative affection?

Neither testimony, tithing, nor submission
Demand the mountains from me
Yet heavenward I climb transcendent.

-T. Weeks
(A response to “BOOK XII: Song of the Broad-Axe”)

Here I splash in my babbling brook, happy, safe, content
Where I know every sound and turn
I plunge deep into the cool stream and stay under
With the familiar submarine domain about me.

There are places in my stream where I feel foreign currents
Unseen tributaries, dark sources of my watery home
These I avoid lest I’m carried away

Sometimes I hear other splashing I raise my head to see
Some misguided simpleton playing gayly in the wrong stream
I call but they dive under, drowning out my invitations

Briefly caught in an unseen eddy I’m whisked against a stone
Injured, dazed I climb onto the rock standing tall to clear the pain
I look about to take comfort in the majesty of my home

Instead I see millions of streams, each home to a stranger,
Lying as a confused tangled rope unwinding to the horizon
Each stream flowing with the topography
Merging and splitting, rising and falling, churning and still

I look back to my little stream, the joy of it,
I look upstream to see whence it came
And down to see it fork 1000 times
This stream I will always love

Jumping into stream after stream I explore, each familiar, each foreign
Am I looking for a better stream?
Each creek seems very much like the last
Would I even recognize mine now?

The stream was my home but now I turn,
My attention drawn to the valley, home of the streams
Then beyond where mountain streams cascade from violent heights
Those streams are much different than these.
Then I wonder about this world, home of the valley.

A new joy flows into me. There is much to see.

-T. Weeks
(A response to “BOOK XI: A Song of Joys”)