Before Recollection

From Before Recollection:

TRANSCENDENTAL POSTCARD

Ann Lauterbach

The outlook such that time is told on waking,

Without aid of cock or clock's crow.

In fact all the birds are elsewhere,

Poised on glossy page or in some fall

Migration. Sun up over mountain is precision,

Then mist travels, exhaling day.

All else, all change, is air,

Dew relenting on the blades

And mirror rhymes

Where water bears resemblance:

A strut of hues to pale even Revlon's alchemy and,

In the center of its glaze, a cauldron of sky-cast blue. "Lauterbach's philosophical poems are concerned with the naming of things, with our perception of emotions, ideas, and objects. . . . [a] small, memorable collection. . ."