BURIED UNDER A CASCALADE

 

by Shaun Lawton 

I see a horse 

  racing the wind.

You see a trout leaping  upstream.

He sees a dolphin diving 

 through whitecaps.

She sees a shark carrying 

 a child's arm in its smile

peering closer as if stops   in its tracks 

inside a vast a hall  of mirrors. 

I see clown faces 

pressed up against  the stained glass 

panels   arranged in cascading polygons 

 which suddenly become whales

bluefin tuna   petroglyphs 

 of panda bears in the desert

  small families hunkered in caves 

 while some sort of hummingsquid

 shoveling for limpets gets strung along 

 the cordoned off portals   of industry. 

Meanwhile  from the corner a ray of light 

infuses the catastrophic 

 sculpture with brass scales

  reflecting an array 

 of configurations 

suggesting the loss

of the most pearlescent

 petrified teardrop shaped

chambers of the hive 

agglomerated into a comb 

of spicy dust the polar bear

  in hibernation must incubate

 away from home as a drone 

confiscated by the reflection 

 of the camera's panoptic eye. 

I see a penguin 

  sleek as a curved chevron 

sailing  over the rainbow 

and crying giant shifting blobs of tears 

 dropped elongating into runnels 

  left over from the burrowing worms

 of time from the yumanitu 

the stain we couldn't find

the glass in our mind

 the flowing stream 

of molten golden 

  memories lying frozen 

    on the catapulted ground.

You see a sedimentary slope 

   of layers stacked over time

    since immemorial matters

  came into fruition. 

He sees hydrothermal vents

   channeled by the fury 

  left over in the wind.

She sees a stray dog 

  she'd like as a friend

buried under  an

escalating cascade

 of recollections 

   to let go of.