Blue Shift

What does a heart know of light?
Locked in its lattice of cattails,

the river dreams of its old bed,
swells to return each spring,

then retreats.  Shale takes
the sun’s heat, holds it

after dark.  Frail as an echo,
shut between stone sheets,

the fossil fern remembers.
Ventriloquist, the heart

throws its voice to the wind,
thrums from the burr oaks

and lichen covered stones.
The river takes the voice

and spools it like silk
til it spills.  Desire

pools in the blackbird’s throat.
Spinning faster than sound,

spring drives its needle
into the heart.