A goose, a kōauau and a bell
are never in tune
and the crickets’ pitch
bends like hair
in a damaged ear,
sharp-flat-sharp-flat
their effervescence
sweetening the night
with tiny plosives dappling
through leaves
like daylight’s flutter on
a moving windscreen under trees
or the oscillation of a nerve set
jangling without end unless
a touch arrives to calm it, whorl
of a finger to gently stress
the need for a harried pulse
to move to slower measure,
103brush of a feather with all
its tiny barbs aligned, quill
still plugged in to the wing
of the bird, or the rippling
part-tones of the bell
expanding and then
gently smoothing out
and settling the wrinkled air.
I set against the digits
that manipulate
all and naught the crickets’
fizz, the vinyl’s hiss,
a goose, a kōauau
and a bell.