The Penguin and The Egg

legends grow as talk goes slow.

creatures of habit on stolid winds

acknowledge longings that swell,

trading mask for napkin veil.

sixteen courses of three, six, and nine,

the seven are tasked 

to recreate historic dinners.

mushroom gentility of mind,

cognitive revolution, or decline.

plant lavender for luck,

and a rosemary plot of wit for winners.

hear Ortolan bunting songbirds,

sweet cousins of the sparrow.

forager of peacocks needs to know,

in a world without meat

what is on the future menu?

full of tourists, a loner in conversion

doubles down on a decameron.

behind eyelids, sunsets imprint vivid

colors in the dust of the Saharan.

bears on the green are livid

at the bears in the lakes of vervain.

link azure dragons and vermillion birds

from spectra mountain to coxswain. 

many wavelengths of light lie beyond 

what eyes can see. all nine muses…

now who gobbles up the galaxies,

sings a strain divine?

crashing waves of orange swoop 

through tail feathers and spiral out 

to form a gleaming eye. a fetus in fetu,

the penguin eats a fish dancing with an oval egg. 

with bland precision, in a reduction of earthly religions, 

the blue dust of Hydra portentously divides a wider sky.