Cardinal In The Guava Tree

                                                         I

                                              (Cubist Vision)                                               

A strip of guava branch
Floats on the summer sky
Three days past solstice.

Floating in the middle

Of the Pacific Ocean, 

My mind swims in the sky

Over Hawaii.

Crystalline clusters
Of guava leaves
Inflate
With a light Hawaiian wind, lift into

Fractal spirals.
Glycerin of deep emerald leaves
Twisting inside
A pale sapphire sky, now yellow topaz

Of fruit rising to the surface of one-dimensional blue
Splashing in the golden wind
Swimming in jewel-glare
Inhaling sunlight in oceans of breath

Guava

Like Picasso brush strokes-

Cubist in the tropical glare,

Multifaceted perspectives

Like revolving jewels in shivering cubist passage,

The synthesis of forms

Across shattered, flat geometric planes of jungle

In the blur of the day's flames

 
The hypnotizing
To and fro of branches,
The completion of fruit

The alchemy of fire in water

Seen in a passing glimpse this moment

Now,  
A streaking spark
Plunges into the heart
Of the Guava- alights, immediately balances-
Ignites in colors of blood and fire

Ruby burst of feathers congelating from fragments of flight,
One wing of Imagination, one of Perception
Conjoined in stillness,
Fixed before my eyes
To the Mutable branches
Becoming again Cardinal 

In the rotations of stars and seasons.

A cardinal:
Strutting flame
Charcoal black eye
Crackling into a song:

Chigo! Chigo! Chigo!

                                     I've heard this cry before
                                     On occasions when I've sensed
                                     The cardinal exalts

                                     It's no small victory
                                     He exists
                                     Nor I.

                                                               Guava blossoms

                                                                       II                 

                                                           (Unicorn Blossoms)
                                        

Fine, white
Rays
                      Bursting from
                      Tiny stars

Lunar incandescence                  blazing upon pistils of                    rare  Guava blossoms
                      inflamed in showers of moonlight

                                                                                   Nearly impossible
Sight
                      To come upon
                      The child-fine hair
                      Of luminous, white petals

Wisping
                                                                                  As the faintest star
                                                                                            Wisps

 Into your eye
                      And vanishes                                                
                                                                                            Inside you

                                                 Unicorn blossoms, they
                                                 Drink their fill
                                                 Beneath the moon
                                                                                         Disappearing
                                                                                            So quickly
Into the beginning 

Of new fruit
At sunrise