Suddenly, beyond elsewhere,
the abdication of time.
The black locus of spirit spreads.
The obsidian of Rio Negro still syrupy
from the oven of constant creation.

At a fluvial branching
a transparent twilight
in daylight’s promise of rain.
A calming bliss as when a lover
shaves and smooths his hair.

The excitement benign,
simply felt in this trope
of constant youngness.
You, of the boat and book
are willing to give in.

Nature hums to itself
about prisms, blood streams,
starched jungle profiles,
elemental alphabets
of endless correlations

even as elsewhere the world disgraced itself.

Bowed in contemplation fig and ant trees
festoon ripples with watercolors.
The caiman barks under floating stars
and hyacinths flash alien greens
onto the river’s runway.

From feather fireworks to frog chimes
to glittering piranha nurseries
to giants swamping through the wetland
to the carnivore’s ornate solitude:
a myriad autographs

conceding cruelties to the underbelly of space and quiet.

Then in the near distance
a howling choir,
an anthropoid clamor
of supplication and threat
makes you overhear the great silence.

Photo by Andrew Coelho on Unsplash