When I listen for the
music of the spheres in Fresno
I hear birdsong and traffic,
birdsong and traffic every time,
except when it rains, or when
I’m in a movie theater, or
when I see a kite like smoke,
or smoke like a kite, then I
stop listening and marvel only,
I hear nothing, not even
traffic and birdsong, but I
still hear the music of the spheres.

“What a laugh!” you say,
“Nobody hears that bullshit.”
Well, I do. Here in Fresno.
Sometimes I even remember,
with the greatest relief imaginable,
who I am, the man of ash wood,
in the newspaper infrequently
like the appearance of a cardinal-bird
in a bush or on a rooftop,
entirely myself there and here and everywhere
for a moment, unpredictable at best,
yet it is myself. I know who I am
by a feel. It passes too quickly.

I am the extinct and endangered birds,
dodo, passenger pigeon, bald eagle,
condor and the rest,
because I understand when birds speak,
I recognise the the wisdom of their flight, too,
but the dead or dying birds chose me
because they are my familiar,
as I am theirs. I am the dodo,
passenger pigeon, bald eagle
and condor, all the dead and dying birds.

I sit outside sometimes
staring into the sky
like my Uncle Wally used to do,
seeing at the same time my life
and a thing with no connection to my life,
Orion as the night swells or the Serpent before dawn.
I am that old, one million years or so.
I don’t want to know more
because I would make myself meaningless,
and my home and my family would not recognize me.
I would be an infant, not even reborn
this time.