Spring Lovesick

Just as if an aching tooth

or the rot of a hollow cavity calls

the probing tongue into its place

by unstoppable sway

in just the self-same way

Spring summons out my song

strokes my sense of right and wrong

with open joy and happy toothache

by the random kook

of a blue-jay’s cheeky cackle tunes

I feel as light and bright as a Starling

each and every courts its darling

shoves the tittering Sparrows in love

I can barely move or start to take a step

without a song springing from my heart

to my lips.

But come,

now is the summer:

the sway of the heat calls you

into the shadow.

In the haze of heat distortion

sweet wines will tenderize

our rock-hard cheeses—

as my canticle will tenderize the Absence.

May he sing who loves whichever-which,

songs lift even these cares.

I can hardly move

‘fore I ‘gin to sing.

[tongue tempted

by tooth—

song tempted

by pain]

when springtime...

By wood and by steel the blow

Receive

Bone to flesh, flesh to skin,

skin to hair, and hair to grass,

the blow by steel and by wood.

pastourelle—

receive our lives uncurling

papers in the forest-fire

by steel

by bone

by flesh

by skin

by hair

by grass

by wood

unfurling

receive the harvest

of our bodies

May she sing who loves whichever-whom,

even songs can lift these cares.

My Bucolica is a modern reboot of the "eclogue" form originating in Classical Greece and Rome and much rehashed throughout all European literature. It usually comes in the form of a collection of shepherd's songs, dialogues, and stories featuring themes of love/desire, nature/the seasons, death/mortality, and the passing of time. It is often a playground to poeticize the animal world and humankind's relation to it, as well as particulars of the seemingly idyllic life led by simple shepherds and farmers in Arcadia. It is also referred to as bucolic literature. I wrote my Bucolica 2017-2018 in a mix of poetry and prose.