Dazzle camo droplet
zebra up trunk, zebra down
insectivorous iconic imp
⁃ I wish more in life
could render me
this sun stoppingly still
produce a true lockdown
burn me with beauty
fix me
⁃ in this moment
climbing kettle wall
Vale of Kashmere
Down for it?
Up to yew.
Up, down
Down, up
Micro migration
A meter, maybe
Makes me muse
Of any thing
I can see a slice only
Let’s hold hands and realize
That this poem, too,
Has beat wings leagues
And this crumpled text
Blender-rendered
swirled onyx and ice
Would look nice
On hollow passerine bones
Patrolling horse chestnut, tulip
Deodar cedar
Vale of Kashmere
But what about lost billions?
What’s birds’ disease?
Much less the trees
Much less the bees
I smell vast dissipation
Behind my nose art
Lightning white
And bolts of black
My pestilential plumage
I go
With long lipped corners
Frownward
Down
Vale of Kashmere
But trapped in rusticity
You bestill beside me
Lenses half a social distance long
Down, below
Hurricaned Sandy timber
Up, above
Time, warbling wildly
Wobbling wanton and warped
⁃ Stops
Droplet dazzles anew
“What type is that?”
He passes uphill close
Brusque
Definite non-birder
“Black-and-white warbler”
Leaves me read all over
Time
He gazes
You and I gaze too
Abyss, heaven
Feral faded parasols
Brown bark bits
Vale of Kashmere
Behind pinioned facade
A minute beak
Points
Up
⁃ First smile in a while
You I He
Pause atrophied
Hungry for distance
And lack of distance
Where to go?
Vale of Kashmere
Fiddleheads at our feet
Unfurl fringed answers
We each walk
Our tracks
Entwined labyrinths
Of white and black
On feathered back
In true
A maze meant
A-wing in
Valed perfection
—
Brad Vogel is the author of the poetry collections Find Me in the Feral Pockets (featured in The New Yorker in spring 2024) and Broad Meadow Bird. His writing has appeared in The New York Times and various poetry publications. He founded NYC Poets Afloat, a residency and reading series aboard ships. He lives and canoes in Gowanus, Brooklyn, which reminds him of his one-time home in post-Katrina New Orleans.
