Up from a crown of green break free these three
bright blossom-crusted branches, and from these
ascends a music pitched past anarchy:
near dusk, the girls are once more in the trees.
But what apocalypse has moved them so,
what orgy in high heaven, or what riot
they bear impassioned witness to below—
their frenzied warnings can but amplify it.
Mad bird song yields a carnage all its own,
a crop of bruised pink petals, shaken free
from all but color caught by dying sun.
They’re falling all around me, voicelessly.
They’re floating down. They stain my arms and hands
with drops of angels’ blood, paler than man’s.
(Petulu, Bali—2000)
(for Mary Meriam)
R. Nemo Hill is the author of an illustrated novel, Pilgrim’s Feather (Quantuck Lane, 2002); a narrative poem, The Strange Music of Erich Zann (Hippocampus, 2004); and a chapbook, Prolegomena to an Essay On Satire (Modern Metrics, 2006). He lives in New York City where he is Editor and Publisher of EXOT BOOKS.
