Focus

Sometimes I find it odd what gains, then loses, our attention.

The normally bland face

Of Uranus

Is now extremely stormy.

The camera on the comet

Has shut down

In the dark.

Eyes trained on the heavens

The melting ice cap,

Ebola

Have lost

Their audience.

Wars and rumors of wars

The man or woman

On the streets

The person in the pew

Beside us,

They join

The periphery.

We wait for the comet

To streak closer

To the sun.

We hope more light

Will start the data stream

Again.

Meanwhile Uranus

Is stormy.

No one knows why.

The Beyond

Today was a funk day.  When I got in the car, the gas gauge said now, get gas now, or you will surely be sorry.  So I listened.  I was not late.  In retrospect, many positive things happened... conversations, mostly.  When I got home I opened the doors and windows... and heard the children playing out of the corner of my eye.  

After days of encouraging others

To look beyond themselves,

I was ambushed tonight

By the Beyond

Myself.

It stood in my peripheral vision

Waited to pounce

Until I slightly turned my head.

The day did not begin well.

Mondays rarely do.

There was little magic.

Still the Beyond

Had tricks up its sleeve.

Sometimes it even wears a cloak

Of invisibility.

I cannot identify

Anything particular

Except now it is the end

Of the day

And with all the windows open,

I hear the children

Playing.

On the periphery

Now that the rain has stopped for a bit, and it is warmer, the hummingbird returns.  I catch her possibility on the edge of my visual field.  While I wonder about hummingbirds, I also think about how much goes on at just the edge of our vision, what we turn our heads to see full on, what we ignore.  What have we been trained to pay attention to?  What will we train ourselves to pay attention to?  Or ignore?

On the periphery

Motion

The hummingbird has returned

To the columbine.

When I turn I see her full on,

Small green almost alien

In her movements.

Why is it bird men

Get all the colors?

Her mate with the flashy

Ruby throat

Is elsewhere.

She is green, only green,

Hums on the edge of green bushes

Mines the columbine

For nectar

Disappears,

Leaves me with so many questions:

Where is he, of the ruby throat?

What do they do in the rain?

How do they keep flying?

I remember fairy tales

Stories of hummingbird eggs

A delicacy some people ate.

Maybe they still do.

I saw a picture once

Of a hummingbird at rest.

Of course they have to rest,

Nest,

Lay eggs,

Raise little hummingbirds.

How do they teach them to fly,

So I can catch their motion

Out the side of my eye

On the periphery?