The Sleep of Reason, a Collection of Poems by Edwina Pendarvis, P.J. Laska, and Peter Kidd (2019)

DOWN FROM PARKER

I-25 South a few miles
north of Albuquerque
an explosion of blackbirds
traffic moving 40 mph
for a while
they do their formation dance
to my left

passing thru stone abutments
I see the strata of sandstone
and shale
and all the substrata around them
and a mélange

it comes to me
things of beauty
these sunsets too
with a color of copper
in the first stage of patina
both ever-changing
omni elements
the wind sculpts
like Kaufmann’s Cherino

and language and art
too resist change
at mother lode times
like Shakespeare playing
ping pong with Rembrandt

a subtle naming does occur best
accumulation no longer looking for the rational
it’s the reasonable that I prefer…

—(Excerpted from The Sleep of Reason, a Collection of Poems by Edwina Pendarvis, P.J. Laska, and Peter Kidd. Igneus Press (2019))