August Smith
In the Backyard
Mercury rising--
Will the bees be out to work
by the stump on the water spout-
side of the house?
Will the porch hornets sound like wild saxophonists?
They who have such an ancient feeling
roiling inside them.
I hope it is time for disparate voices to unite.
Even in the backyard my migratory instinct
needles me with self-doubt
Have you, in fact, come back to your roots?
What dreams are still unrevealed?
Is this the Amazon in the bones
that I’ve had since I was 12,
when I first invested green currency
in the banks of my inmost marrow?
Why then do I evade?—Clouds convening so suddenly.
Rain drops diving like skinny
daredevils leaping nimbly
off nimbus and cumulus cliffs.
The ancient ones may still be here among us
for all I know, the priest and the foreman
have more assurance than I do.
I am re-situated in a continually re-decorated interior--
Among the damask and brocade,
embossed wood paneling, silk screened wallpaper,
a mural ceiling runner,
and wainscoting, I sit on bamboo or teak wood.
Do I transplant myself to the terra petra de Indio and de-hibernate
from my suburban cave? Uncage the jaguar
or preen with the uropygial gland? Satchmo as a frogmouth bird,
Mozart as a ripple-back crocodile—each demands manifestation within.
Mercury rising--
Will the bees be out to work
by the stump on the water spout-
side of the house?
Will the porch hornets sound like wild saxophonists?
They who have such an ancient feeling
roiling inside them.
I hope it is time for disparate voices to unite.
Even in the backyard my migratory instinct
needles me with self-doubt
Have you, in fact, come back to your roots?
What dreams are still unrevealed?
Is this the Amazon in the bones
that I’ve had since I was 12,
when I first invested green currency
in the banks of my inmost marrow?
Why then do I evade?—Clouds convening so suddenly.
Rain drops diving like skinny
daredevils leaping nimbly
off nimbus and cumulus cliffs.
The ancient ones may still be here among us
for all I know, the priest and the foreman
have more assurance than I do.
I am re-situated in a continually re-decorated interior--
Among the damask and brocade,
embossed wood paneling, silk screened wallpaper,
a mural ceiling runner,
and wainscoting, I sit on bamboo or teak wood.
Do I transplant myself to the terra petra de Indio and de-hibernate
from my suburban cave? Uncage the jaguar
or preen with the uropygial gland? Satchmo as a frogmouth bird,
Mozart as a ripple-back crocodile—each demands manifestation within.
August Smith received his BA from Loyola University/New Orleans and MFA in Creative Writing from Cornell University. His poems have appeared in Wide Open, The Great American Poetry Anthology, and Down in the Dirt, and are forthcoming in Bending Genres and the Writer’s Egg. He resides in Alpine, Texas.