May19: "Deep Mexican Night," Cranked Up to Ten, "Trillium"

Billy Collins on vacation . . . 

Deep Mexican Night

by: Martin Achatz

You can hear them playing jai-alai

from this flowering terrace,

the distant rebounding ball,

and the fans with their strange cheer:

"Jai-alia-aiiahh-jaih-jaaiihaahaha!"

At night, the volume of everything seems cranked up to ten.  Crickets.  Barking dogs.  Peepers from a nearby lake.  And, according to Collins, a game of jai alai.

Maybe it's because all the noise of the day has gone to bed, leaving the world empty as the Grand Canyon.  Everything becomes amplified, even the stars and moon and trees.

I often stand in my backyard at midnight or later, just to be a part of the show.  I've seen skunks and deer, meteors and auroras.  Nearly drowned in an ocean of lilacs.  Whistled with crickets.  Wondered at a galaxy of dandelions under my bare feet, making me feel as if I was strolling through the universe.

I have a patch of trillium that blooms on my property line.  No idea how they came to be there, but they return year after year, multiplying like life-sick ghosts.  They are blooming now, singing their spring song.

Saint Marty is heading outside now to listen to them.

Trillium

by: Martin Achatz

On this Pentecost night,

I mistake them for

tongues of white flame

preaching to the dark

in the language of grass.