Monday Poem

Lolla Rossa

in a field behind our house
Lolla Rossa transfigured in morning light
becomes

at the instant a groundhog
just on haunches drops
and scuttles under the shed

becomes
the very light
that shaped her—

becomes the very particles or waves
(as the truth may be
or both) which transcendentally
show themselves
to us here
in this room
and out there
fifty feet down the slope

present themselves as ruby lettuce whose leaves,
tightly packed and convoluted at their mortal edges,
echo the muscle songs of our personal star
who blows trumpet too to praise her
—Miles Davis from the corner
of this universal room
spinning past the iris of a laser
in the dark reaches
of a CD tray

—Lolla Rossa now un-transfigured
as a cloud comes between
pause and play

by Jim Culleny
10/20/12