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Year: 2019

Digital Sharp

Crystalline beaches on some Philippine island,
somewhere I’ve never been:
an ad—digital sharp—on my screen.

I remember faded Kodak color,
old photos from the tropics,
a distant childhood,

faded blue mountains and a blurry sea.
Grainy life seen in a kid’s Instamatic 110
makes me wonder

about the ad, the way Luzon might
look to modern or at least grown-up
eyes. I can almost hear the roaring

vintage fighter jets. Do tourists
who answered the ad look up at sky
printed in the ‘70s?

Crows

At some point walking down the same trail that’s so familiar but still capable of surprise, I realize I can count life in decades now, neatly dividing events into personal eras. The path descends to a tree where I turn for a loop along the creek that tomorrow will find the river.

a certain slant of flight
in the bleak December sky—
crows heading home

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(allusive haiku)