Listen to Dan Beachy-Quick read his piece:
Gnats breed, mind broods, a cloud in the air
Breathes out one breath until the cloud is gone,
And the sun pours down heat in glaring hours
That prisms wings as thought prisons song.
The grass dreams other dreams than those the crickets
Conspire—dreams of being those taut lyre-strings
Pulled up to the sun despite the thicket’s
Maze; but the lyre is in the sun, and sings
To itself some glaring song that withers all
Other ears. Do they—“wailful”—mourn? The wind
Construes its own cell gorged on dismal
Nothing by nothing marked. Not wind—mind—
And the rainbow-flash sprung out the gnats’ glass
Wings mark the eye’s prayer; it shows it what it lacks.
Dan Beachy-Quick is the author of two recent collaborations, Work from Memory (with Matthew Goulish, Ahsahta, 2012) and Conversities (with Srikanth Reddy), as well as the book of essays and tales, Wonderful Investigations (Milkweed, 2011). He teaches in the MFA Program at Colorado State University.