Bill Berkson

 

                               Tango
                                                     for Liz Rideal

          Maybe we need another word for nature
                     would chaos do
largely friendly lately it has been a confidant
          up there with actuality, another word that insists on being

                     all leaves and unfigure-out-able turnings
                                a fork holds up the air sky
its trident mirror image jabs over eons into the
                                                              deep dark snuggle

                     That wanderer’s length is a bird-colored
                               click on deliquescence
                                         shave off the finer hairs
          you might find a face

                     dismissive of skepticism
                        an opaque residue
                     where fibers lunch on
circular bugs, or vice versa, affinity, figure and ground

                                                      coterminous with
                               a sapling dressed to the nines to dissemble
                     launching a lecture or panel discussion
                                          on troubled paradise

lightning strikes but once, from the ground up
                               I like to sit in its lap
                                          the stellar urgency of this life
                     actual in less than date and time