Imagining

Imagine light unpeeling
like appleskin,
or a cloud of crows
circling,
from a woodland pond
reflecting
trees above
regarding me with wonder,
imagining me.

Awakening

See morning unpeel
like an orange,
loop the merry-
go-round sun and
once
again
churn me
to butter,
spread me thick
on baguette
like marmalade.
See light plink
a backyard pond
in horizons,
swing
and swoop me
like fin-flash
to the moon.
And see my cup
drip with jelly,
toys
toast and figs
sprung
by awakening.

Knowing

Watch days peel off
like grapes,
green as gum
sweet as wine
swift in twilight
twisting
like wings
tableau of stem
branch
and skin
plucking bunches,
knowing me.

Clifford Bernier is the author of three poetry collections; he has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes and his book The Silent Art won the Gival Press Poetry Award. He appears on harmonica in the Accumulated Dust world music series and is featured on the EP Post-Columbian America. A member of the Washington Writers Collection, he has featured on NPR’s The Poet and the Poem from the Library of Congress and lives in Alexandria, Virginia.

Image by Joe Mabel, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons