From Things You Find in a Poet's Beard by A.F. Harrold

i.

Great grey belly porker,

toothy yawning slug,

cow-nosed submarine,

giant in the mud,

I saw a bride splendid in white garments
I saw a woman with one hundred children 
The children plump and firm within her arms,
But some fell down or strangers took and ate them

I’ve seen those tough as oaks

weep like willows

even the hardest thugs can have tear stained pillows

most can’t see the forest for the trees

That fire, they said, was red as red as red
as red as a fox, your lips, a cherry;
that fire, they said spread and spread and spread,
faster than a cheetah or a nasty rumour;

In the Carribean
at the end of day
sun drops suddenly
like a fire ball
behind forested hills

Five children clasping mittens
could not hug the entire trunk.
Whole hands could hide in the folds of its bark.
James, the tallest boy in class,
could sit on a root,

Now we're up on the edge

and over, on the mountain

with mountains beyond. Behind us,

            in the dark

of the valley, villages are embers

Catfish
take catnaps on seabeds
Sticklebacks
stick like glue
Terrapins
are terrific with needles
But what does a didgery do?

From Things You Find in a Poet's Beard by A.F. Harrold

Frost spins white lines

on the lawn,

grass turns glass-like,

crisp crackle-snap

underfoot.

I feel it, first as a stir,
turning deep in the murky water.
Surfaces up for air, a twitch
on the lake in my head.
A flip, and it disappears.