My heart beats against the ground
while I contemplate bird wings, leaves like feathers,
and five butterflies that sway in time beneath the sky.
Above this tree stars hide behind the moon
that rises round as a clock's worn face.
How does it orbit the earth so easily
when gravity's cryptic force draws us all down?
Still, we know that trees bear weight well.
I watch branches sway like the pendulum of an old clock.
Inside, the tree's heart is scribed with rings and sap,
mundane until a thousand years have passed
to mark the bark with drought and ash.
When the clock stops, a broken tree reveals
how damage is writ in circles: each one a year's orbit.
This poplar hasn't grown a heart that old.
And I can't feel the young sap rise like a clock's weight
or grasp why the birds know when to feed their young
and when to sleep in the night's timed darkness.
I'm grateful the heart beats without need
for winding parts and complicated clocks.
As the sun starts its dusk-time walk,
the five butterflies slip into sky like leaves
blown off the branch when autumn's time is here.
And I must rise before dinner's chime reminds me
that the moon will find me if I stay too long
to count the lights as hidden stars turn on.
~ Christine Klocek-Lim's poems have appeared in Nimrod, The Pedestal Magazine, The Aurorean, the Quarterly Journal of Ideology, and elsewhere. In 2006, her work was selected as a finalist for Nimrod's Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry. She is editor of the online journal, Autumn Sky Poetry, and her website is http://www.novembersky.com.