Monday Poem

Tell Me Something I Don't Know

Don’t tell me the earth’s a sphere
and the sun’s kiss planted there 
amounts to half-day terminal bliss
with a dark end

or that winters have to do with angles
mystics have to do with angels
and lovers are about orbiting passions
that whirl like eclipsing binaries—
star pairs that pulse across light years
to come in telescopes
before they're spent

Don’t tell me the wind’s a metaphor
for a longing to fill vacuums
that sometimes spit typhoons

or that a red cardinal seen
in the high reach of a cherry tree
is no more sublime than worms
who burrow among turnip roots
for a living

Don’t tell me the chances of being
are equal to the odds of not being

—tell me something I don’t know

Tell me how to weave
tomorrow into yesterday
without tangling, without
strangling today

Jim Culleny
10/10/12