Divine stereo listening with my eyes
Closed in the sweet spot under the patio
Not far from the hanging seed
The crows confabulate in a 
Narrowing circle above my head
The orange-breasted robins on the left and
Plain brown wrens quarrel in the dense
Mock oranges the gardener recently chopped
The tops of making less space and more rancor.
From somewhere on the right a bossy bluejay gets
Off his feathery duff and regulates—loudly.

I sit so still a fat white dove comes to the feeder within
Two arms’ reach and clicks seeds into his beak
The sound of raindrops spitting against glass.
My eyes are closed but I know he is fat because I have been
Feeding my backyard aviary heartily—because his wing beats are
Heavy when he flies away—and because the plastic feeder swings
And squeaks on its rusty hook in his absence.

I know he is pure white because 
My imagination tells me so.

A too-warm-for-early-March breeze sidles
In from the East—the one wind whose name 
I don’t know—and plays a single note on the
Copper wind chime to my right before touching
My hand the way a virgin who wants
A lover with his whole body is only brave enough 
To suggest hand-holding
One soft pinky tip to another.

The no-name virgin god-wind and all the bawdy
Many-named and sun-shining gods and all the white 
And black and blue and brown and orange birds

And the magenta hibiscus—the coral
The gold, the scarlet

And the topaz pool
The empty terracotta pots
All the cement the color of cement

Nothing separate—color, sound,
Birds, flesh, wind. One
Pulsing lover and beloved

And gratitude—the snake
Who worships and adores his own tail 
His eyes half bliss slits as he consumes it
Whole—too sweet for venom or bite
And ever expanding this tail as it moves 
Through his body passing each one of his
Seven humming hearts, emerging from 
Him longer and more glorious than before
Expanding the circle endlessly
Scale by glistening scale. 

Seed by seed
Petal by petal
Feather by feather
Melody by melody 
Ear by ear
Both eyes closed.

-M. Ashley