Bright bird’s eye gleam and spry bill spellbind.
No eyesight’s finer than the kingfisher’s, we find,
glimpsing fins underwater from halcyon height.
The crown’s jagged crest, streamlined for flight,
gun metal gray as gale-driven waves,
whitened by the icy nape of winter.
Black because this bird dives with such force
membranes must shutter their eyes’
wild orbs before they strike water.
These colors conjure the sea’s many lives.
And brushstrokes honor form and flight,
with glimmering eye for swimming things.
Gaze closely in the painting and you’ll find
even their feathers’ pure structure scatters blue light.

By Matt Schumacher

Il y a dans la lune
Trois petit lapins
Qui mangent des prunes
En boivant du vin
--French children’s song

Sitting up straight to face that bright white light.
Maybe staying still so we may chase the impossible.
Never mind all the lost rides of Coney Island,
the mushrooms and pills of Jefferson Airplane.
Here, you’re the true guru. You are wonderland:
Your glow’s at least as celestial a gift
as those rabbits who inhabit the moons of Chinese myth
and French children’s songs, and what’s more,
suns hide away in your golden peach fur,
dwell there as if to warm your shadow
on some distant planet’s dark side.
Still, there’s a glint of the tiny, wide-eyed kits
so alive in their tenuous grass nests I’d find
and never disturb on the green hills of childhood.

By: Matt Schumacher