On the Turning of the Year
by Karen An-Hwei Lee
published in Spoon River Poetry Review, Issue 43.2, Winter 2018
To witness five seventeen-year cicada
cycles in a lifetime—To hear an entomologist refer to cycles
as blooms—
To say a metallic clicking noise repels the crows in our apple
orchard—To say cicada blooms explain the crashing
bird populations—
To list reasons why I wish to murmur injunctions of praise
in the ellipses of fireflies—To wonder if a funicular monikered angel flight,
rusted out-of-commission on a city hill,
a mourning dove over beds of grass-licked cloud, hovers—
To ponder the alpha and omega of eating
salmon roe—To sing the floating syllables of winter suns—
trilling rose-fire of melisma—
To arrange stargazer lilies on a console so a day
brightens—To seek an equivalent for nonexistence
not absence—
To pray until we vanish together, in sum—
To say without song, hosanna—at the turning of the year
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