Standing still for a minute in the park, it’s like a Disney movie—the birds and squirrels gather round. 

What’s the difference between this bird, with his mohawk and orange beak, turning sideways to look at me with one bright eye, and the new leaves swaying behind him?

Plants and animals split off from an earlier life-form.  And on the sea floor there are vegetables with mouths.

The tulips, so upright and alive, like a teenage choir.  And this squirrel rising up on two legs to stare at me.

Look at those shoulders, arms and forearms, chest.  Even a navel!

No doubt we communicate creature to creature.  I try to beam him good will.  Can’t eat good will.  He scampers off, with a single curse, then leaps onto the trunk of a tree, powers up the spiral stair.  Our one encounter in this life…

And the tulip.  Little ice cliff of flower flesh. 

The birches are radiant in themselves.   Then amplified by sun from a clear sky, bouncing off them, off other trees, off people carrying their coats–all these waves colliding in a brilliant haze.

Bird with the orange beak, perched on a low wire fence.  I know this will be brief.  But it’s actually lasting a while, through many jerky frame by frame movements of your head… 

Branch of new leaves, you work your magic on me.  You’re not going anywhere.  I sink into you, smiling.  Pure life shining.  Something in me lets your swaying slow my heartbeat.

A phenomenon, from 7:27-7:46am.

Morning light, reflected, fills the pillared house across from me with brilliant water.

The pillars are only a gateway.  The bay lives inside!

Not our laws of nature.

The house is surrounded by trees.  Nested. 

The Panettis are coated in light-filled water surface.

At 7:35, peak reflection, they wade to the fridge, wade to the table.

The dog in the backyard knows it’s coming, finds himself lifted, starts to paddle…

And for me, to live alongside trees and water.  The bay with all its behaviors.  These combinations.  To watch it all through the blowing branches of a palm. 

Huge clouds, massive, ethereal.  Divine hippos.

Thick liquid silver.

The trees at different distances swaying in rhythm.

People out early, rowing, gliding.  In front of them, speed-walkers.

True meaning of a dream house!  The prices on that mirage-laden peninsula must be…

The approach of water, then pillars, then water beyond.  The shimmer in time with the branches.  Reminds me of something…

But vertical.  Midnight.  I’m 14.  On the narrow path between river and canal.  On both sides trees go down to water, leading deeper to trees with stars between leaves.  For more miles than I can walk, this realm is a thin crust of floating water, with air above and below.  Utter stillness.  I am living in another universe!

A creature, unformed, a tadpole or fawn, stands in the shower spray.

Puts coconut on its amorphous body, coffee on its face.

Becomes a fabulous beast.  Scent of the body in the nostrils, scent of the face. 

Goes out into the world, into ancient Greece.  Is seen by the sibyls.  Becomes legendary, recorded later in bestiaries.

Is part of the collective unconscious, summoned every once in a long while by a painter or sculptor.  Appearing in a dream…

The tadpole or fawn turns up the force of the spray, washes clean. 

Now musk on its body, citrus on its face.  Both in the nostrils. Smooth on the body, gritty on the face.

Feels its own unlikely existence.  It works!  The transition rooted and flowing from the collarbones…

Goes forth naked onto the subway.  On four legs down the aisle, hooves clattering.  Finds a seat.   Shines.  Even in New York, people stare.  Smile, shiver.

In the shower, it continues to live, the lifespan goes on.  Studying the swirling steam, deflected spray…

Runs out onto the plains.  Unique, but not lonely.  The creature of coconut and coffee galloping alongside.