Fellowship

Fellowship

Don’t count your chickens before they are hatched
and don’t count your kitchens if they are unlatched
and if you do count your unhatchlings call them eggs
and know that they are real as they doze in their shells
and if you count a dozen you can either have a feast
or twelve new pets or twelve porcelain water balloons
or a dozen marvels of biology and construction
built to shatter by chisel of innermost agitation 
Don’t count your mortifications to be or to come
but if you do search your pocket or pillowcase
and locate this card which I have placed there
for you my fellow fallible being It is embossed
With one finger feel the tiny skyline of its inscription
which reads Member of the Mere Mortals
since Birthday (Membership included with being born)

"One," by Dunja Jung

"One," by Dunja Jung

1

1

Candle rising to its feet
fed by cake of snow
and calendar Pioneer
numeral Glyph of self
Bookmark to place
within memory Here
the first smile Here
the first step First
word First school First
remembered loneliness
First good kiss One
a visitation A thumb
Freshly downed arrow
A lamppost to circle
If all else goes to crumb
look at this pillar this
elevator shaft with open
doors Read the plaque
that says You invented
a new way to invite air
into body You were bark
trunk birdhouse bird worm
You are flight You are
flying Here is the place
you whispernamed Liftoff

How to make a vortex

Place a clock on a shelf for a least two weeks

Look at the clock and trust that it knows time

Allow life to continue, forget about the clock but continue to glance its way: make sandwiches, fill glasses with water, scatter and gather toys

One night, remove the clock

You will find yourself turning your head and searching for the time
The clock wants to get back up on the shelf but is locked in the closet
Now the missing clock wants your gaze

Maybe the poem can be

the prints skittering across the snow-skinned yard

and the wondering about the small body who produced them

The melting artifact with the teeming forest breathing in its ear