Ecuador Poem

By CRALAN KELDER

Playa d’Oro
The canopy above ajerk with toucans
ajerk with toucan, and no,
you can’t eat them,
so sorry.

let’s draw an arbitrary line,
at something we’ll call reality
something we’ll call when we need it,
keep at a distance when we don’t

in the travel journal i thought that there was plenty of material,
plenty of poems.
I was mistaken it
turns out to be a bunch of lists.

back in these here united states
I don’t want to look back in regret, but i do feel fortunate

it’s the little things: being awake near dawn,
as it rears through a window
silent profound and blue,
and the first movement of birds their
voices quiet at first and then rising, raucous

riding a bike under fall trees
ok I admit it
maybe they aren’t so little,
these things.

Cralan Kelder is the author of Give Some Word. His work has recently appeared in Zen Monster, Poetry Salzberg Review, and VLAK, among other publications. Kelder currently edits the literary magazines Full Metal Poem and Retort. He lives in Amsterdam with the evolutionary biologist Toby Kiers and their children.