Jennifer Manion: three poems

Apiology | Opposites Arise in the Buddha Mind | Demi-glose

Apiology

I am no
scientist,
though I have
heard about
prions, the
asteroid
Ceres, N-
fixation,
beta de-
cay, and am
curious;

the mine, where,
twenty-four
hundred feet
underground,
persistent
physicists
search, pressed by
ore that shields
the cosmic
rays, for dark
matter.

        What
I come back
to is how,
in this place
where winter
gnashes and
the air it-
self is cold
stone, the bees
return and
where they have
been and what
sounds they make
there in the
dark-bound ground.

Opposites Arise in the Buddha Mind

When, baring them still
leafless, spring’s unfinished sky
tells time to trees. The

ticking of the sun,
as fragile as spider web
hinges, tipsily

scurries this drunken
dawn’s mesmerism, o green
o’clock, o demure

believers. In time
no thing unfurls forbidden,
o lucky budding,

not the last or the
first, not the most beautiful,
not even the best.

Demi-glose

In your sleep you whisper cumulus
It is a trick the body plays

Pulling like a magician
Sleeve-deep in the mind’s hat luminous
Weather words released as doves or divination
In your sleep you whisper cumulus

The wind’s cadence the effect of light
At the atmospheric edge name the ways
You hover just above the sheet’s neat white
It is a trick the body plays

Poet's Biography:

Two of Jennifer Manion's poems appeared in the summer 2004 issue of Fence. She lives in Minneapolis, where she writes and edits. She also currently teaches philosophy at St. Olaf College, having received her Ph.D. in Philosophy from Johns Hopkins University. She came to writing poetry late — thought it would help break the writer's block she suffered in her work life. Her strategy succeeded, but it bred a new obsession.