Pheasants

The deep strangeness of the ordinary--
Water in the shallow lake,
Words in the head,
Birds running across the road
As shotguns pop over the marshes.
A boat in full camouflage paint
Goes by behind a chittering truck.
Seagulls keep to themselves,
Screeching like bickering children.
The clouds sneak up on the eyes,
Fly away, sneak back and close in.

How does any of this happen,
Always being and always gone
In order to be something being at all?
The nouns and verbs themselves
Are not themselves, are haunted.
Time is the barefoot ghost stepping
Through the middle of us, the spirit
Everyone human names
In order to worship and appease the unnameable,
A joy to observe,
An ache in the bones to survive.