Being from Kansas,
you said you couldn’t tell
one month from another
because there are no
seasons here, the weather
is all one, no boxes of sweaters
to unbundle, no wind-tugged
scarves, just board shorts and
T-shirts year round. I could
point to the shower trees rich
with green leaves but without
a single pink or orange flower
and how the blooms
of the white plumeria are
smaller, and in the evening
under the clear moon, do not
disclose their fragrant
centers quite so fully so that
strolling beneath the trees
at night, you do not walk
into a wall of sweet odor
with the moist hint of a baby’s
breath. I could point to variances
in the times of sunrise and sunset
and temperature swings
of as much as 4 to 5 degrees!
But if I had to choose, because
the catalog is getting long, it would be
the golden plover who winters
here, after his trans Pacific voyage
of 3000 miles, his body lighter
by half for the journey and how
when his feet touch down
on a familiar patch of grass
in the neighborhood park or
soccer field, from that day
forward till April when
he leaves for home again
there is a shyness in the light, a hint
of mintiness in the air, a cool zither-like
thrumming in fronds of the palm.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 23, Issue 5.
Works by Derek Otsuji have appeared in the Threepenny Review, Rattle and Pleiades. New poems are forthcoming in The Southern Review, Beloit Poetry Journal and Bennington Review.
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