From "Starry Messenger"

Susan Gevirtz's "Starry Messenger" ends with a pretty perfect suite of poems; I thought to reproduce a few of them here to tie up my focus on Aerodrome Orion & Starry Messenger.
It's often difficult to tell where one poem ends and another begins, but I'm pretty sure the following constitutes "Falling Objects":





          Falling Objects

If one gives us music
the other ear turns it to air

which to worship ear or air


In the dark before that is not it

rummaging for

an object

said where

the sun is the center—why doesn't the moon fall out of the sky

                                 well we wither

                                 well we alter well

and unto alarm's sunder



we edit so much
throwing bones outside
the casting circle

     high winds on a man in a tower while the earth rushes through its errands

on a train moving 19 point five miles per second


But I have tested the sum

rest with it

whose agreement is ours

while planets spin around us


a bird leaves its branch

outstripping worms to the west

in a flight for north and eastward worms

sees over these problems

dropping fast through rotation

as if orbit is not our venue

or supposition easy prey

to a bird hanging on for dear life

lets go for an instant

yet is not lost forever

sings gaily instead

a little anthem of rest


being heavy braves the elements

on hollow bones braves

our oldest ancestor

inertia

____________________



And this one's called "Night letters" (Susan read this one at the Green Arcade a few months back and totally killed it)

Night Letters*
     --of gloves and masks


-coils of barbed wire
          strung among the clouds-     crowns of thorns

-restricted firmament- halo


here runway whisperer
          -in the clutches of wake-



Above the shrill voice of the cicada
     turbo drones
     cockpit to cabin calls
     wish in noise inaudible


If conversation is
     source

then dream is the outsourcing

people example
who only talk with food in their mouths

a language of warble

stranger water
has visited us here

suffocating under
gratitude's burden

*Letters left in mosques to warn of impending violence 

____________________



Okay, I can't hep myself, one more:



          How I loop the loop


When Bitterjuice the lion wraps its tail

around the sun we call it

eclipse


The three stars of Orion's belt are zebras
failed hunting failed hunted the stars are
before us and may pursue




sun rise     moon set     spine bending     tree falling

     and so June
          7,000 years ago

also called

the remains of that sky
                             air ruins
                   in Timbuktu