Thursday, September 23, 2010

Perspective

Perspective

Three things in the air at once:
plane, pigeon, fly.

I drove the fly here. It clung
to my windshield,

little fly wings almost ripped
from its body

by the speed, the wind against it.
This red light

was his cue to hop off, his stop.
The pigeon sat

with four other pigeons within
telephone wires,

resting on alternating parallel
lines. Sheet music.

The one pigeon flaps frantically,
as far as I can tell,

uncued, rises over the intersection.
A moment later

the others join in, leave the wires
bare and silent.

The plane is small to me, no bigger
than a bird

and its flight is linear, unhurried.
We all must

move while others watch, us Earthly
passengers, pilots.

10 comments

  1. : ) this is superb....I do frequently thing of all three, pigeons, plane and flies. I wonder what the fly thinks when it gets a free ride in a car to a new destination, the pigeons, are they in school, the planes, are people watching us? Have a great Thursday!

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  2. Wonderful piece, Hannah. You've taken something ordinary and turned into something thought-provoking.

    I like how you've ended each line, and how you've made the lines spill one into the other.

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  3. I like the image of the pigeons taking off. The image reminds me of a couple of toys my kids had growing up -- cars or trains or marbles would loop around on tracks.

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  4. From up close with the fly to the plane as a miniature, you had me in the palm of your hand.

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  5. How do you do it?????? You are soooo good at this. I love the fly in your car and the pigeons frenetic movement and the smallness of the plan.

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  6. I love your introspection at the daily, the mundane, how you turn it into something to study, research, come alive to.

    And your closing lines,

    "We all must

    move while others watch, us Earthly
    passengers, pilots."

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  8. I feel such concern when a bug is forced to hitch a ride with me. Your poem reminds me of this. I like the comparison with sheet music to pigeons on the power lines. It makes a great image.

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  9. i like the way you put those into our reach of eyes and mouth..

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  10. from Therese L. Broderick -- I like how the words "Perspective" and "intersection" and "parallel" reflect back on the original drawing. The poem intersects with the drawing.

    The questions about such phenomenon are often these: do events happen randomly? or do they cause one another? once an event is set into motion, does it ripple forever in time and space?

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