abject sublime

I hear a hawk then see it’s a flicker. I hear a chickadee. The rocks are spotted with lichens. It’s windy. I hear sparrows. I hear a scrub jay. Willows fill the base of the canyon where it’s wet enough to grow marsh grasses and blue damselflies, but I can’t see those. A branch of red berries implies a foreground. I hear a raven. When the flicker flies off, red under the wing, it looks like work. What do you call the central artery that makes a feather resemble a leaf? Above me cars pass on O’Shaughnessy Boulevard, a road that I get mixed up with McGrath in Somerville. They both sound like cardinals. The brightest thing on Earth is the wavy red roof of a bus stop. I’m mad at myself for noticing that the new shoots of the willow branch fractally. “I love Sad Wings.” I hear a white-crowned sparrow. Two girls in orange scrunchies wonder about pillars in the bedrock. I try not to see the pillars because this is a canyon. I try not to see the bus stop. I leave chippings of yellow nail polish. I forget which way is up. There are three ravens. I am bad at making myself physically uncomfortable. I take a photo of the bus stop for later. There are ravens and sparrows. I see a poofed up golden-crowned sparrow in the willow behind the red berries. I see a yellow patch around her beak and food on her beak. I hear her wingbeats away. Someone else should come by so I can listen. I hear a distant raven and rounded laughter coming over the coyote’s hill. There are beautiful small sharp ovoid leaves on vertical stems and a hummingbird. A dragonfly buzzes me and I say ahhh to no one. Eleven ravens are high over the pillars. My mother sends me her green fingernails. If I were down in the willows it would smell different.