Jane Wiseman

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is this is that is then

Through the syrup of sunny morning
the roofers down the street, their tapping
syncopation; from the patch of coneflowers
other side of this pane, a rising trill.
The goldfinch summits its arc,
now falls still. Again, further off. Again.

Is this the plan? A crowding in
of sight, sound? Is that
what you mean, what the world means
is sight, is sound. What the world tastes,
honey of a summer day sipped straight from the cup
as the bee hauls pollen home. The scent of the world
filtering deep from the world’s cold runneled stream.
Is meaning only this? Meaning is this,

this the uprush,
the tingle drumming lightly on
boundary of skin. The reaching out for it.
The gathering of it in.

Jane Wiseman, a transplanted Southeasterner, now splits her time between the rural Sandia Mountains of New Mexico and very urban south Minneapolis. Her chapbook "Morning of the World" was published last month. Her chapbook The Bee Telephone won the 2024 Jonathan Holden prize. Her poetry has appeared in The Headlight Review, Southern Poetry Review, Euphony, Main Street Rag, and other journals.