The creek's water stopped flowing
arcing to reach
outside its bed and up
against the pear tree,
Ringing the pears
where bells lacked place.
The tree vibrated and convulsed,
its fruit chiming like the touch of ice to ice
and clanging as brass to brass,
and the noise gushed to the ground,
flooding the lands around,
twinkling a sweet chaos
of pear bell rivulets of
sound.
The sonorous arm of water, succeeding
its ravishing racket of the pears, retreated
to the creek bed shores.
During the ringing, two animals
attended the tree, mute, two hours.
But after the buoyant raccoon scaled the
Pear tree and knocked
a pear to the ground, the heron knew
in the black feathers of its crown
that stickycrisp secrets of
ancestors would blossom.
The pear relieved
its pliant yellow skin on the
dirt, which watched, amorally,
Everything above it.
Dropping its skin
revealed its twelve-natured
lunar pubis:
The first still dizzy from the plunge to Earth,
styled itself a young mynah with no eyes.
The second ate licorice and water but drank
slower than a mature ocean.
The third claimed a mischief of paper cuts,
greater than three is always a mischief.
The fourth looked big as the lead cames
in a window of Arctic islander glass.
The fifth wriggled its toes into the
dirt, unconcerned with the hour.
The sixth became a ripe plum—
Elsewhere distant
bells, deflating like the end times,
let go of their peels.
The seventh rowed frantically as though pulling pushing
oars gathering wind, and in the current, herons.
The eighth, in a frenzy that raised furious foams
of celebration, strummed its Slavic harp.
The ninth spoke in words known only to
lovers that expose their hearts
through the railings of broken ribs.
The tenth believed it could silken a foundation
to outlast the deep lulling August heat.
The eleventh collapsed upon itself, exhausted
in single-minded worship.
The twelfth obsessively tapped the splitting, dropping
skins of the yellow pear bell and cried to their glistening sweetness.
The creek water
(turned tepid
glass of endless ash)
reflected raccoon and heron.
The raccoon circled its eyes
from the spent pear to the heron,
which maneuvred
its beak and
elegantly speared
the yellow
pear skin.
Dousing all twelve, the raccoon
handled each into its mouth.
Sunlight weaved
through the pear tree's
glowing green leaves.
The fruit sated each creature
as silence landed its imminence.
