10:21 am

Genius

Was what they called you in highschool if you tripped on a shoelace in the hall and all your books went flying.

Or if you walked into an open locker door you would be known as Einstein,who imaginied riding a streetcar into infinity.

Later, genius became someone who could take a sliver of chalk and squire pi a hundred places out beyond the decimal point,

or someone painting on his back on a scaffold,or a man drwaing a waterwheel in a margin or spinning out a little night music.

But earlier this week on a wooded path,I thought swans afloat on the rservoir were the true geniuses,

the ones who had figured out how to fly,how to be both beautiful and brutal and how to mate for life.

Twenty four geniuses in all,for I numbered them as Yeats had done,deployed upon the calm, crystalline surface-

forty-eight if we count their still reflections, or an even fifty if you want to toss in me and the dog running up ahead,

who were smart enough to be out that morning-she sniffling the ground, me with my head up in the light morning breeze.

-bc may 03

peace