Mean Poems

Short green grass dotted

With yellow daisies,

Long green stalks weighted

With panfaced sunflowers—

Dark markings, meanwhile,

Interstellar clouds

Of obscuring gas,

Dark nebulae, dust

Sprawled through thick star fields

In Ophiuchus—

That day was August,

An emperor’s name.

Most people prefer

Mid-field perspectives—

From humanly scaled

Warm intimacies

As far as the news,

The current events,

Near-term history,

Just far enough back.

The weeds on the lawn,

The dark clouds of stars,

They fall out frame

When most folks focus.