I’m not usually a big photography buff, but each spring I fall in love with the fallen poui blossoms in my front yard ; this year I just had to take pictures. I’ve also been thinking about the crisis in Libya and what I want to say about the whole mess that it is. For now, seems all I can feel is plain old sad. “Flight of the Poui Carpet” is how these two subjects of my attention over the last week or so have somehow merged. Special thanks to my great friend and poet extraordinaire, Geoffrey Philp, for his editorial suggestions!   

Flight of the Poui Carpet

Yellow fairy blossoms swirl

giggling as they glide

over rooftops and cars

swoop through branches

and tease birds—

they kiss the grass,

then frolic all morning.

A spring carpet of fairies.

 *

In Benghazi and Misrata, Bin Jawad and Ajdabiya,

bullets pierce the skies,

screaming past a little boy eating bazin,

a girl eating asida,

hailing an Arab spring.

No magic carpet to whisk them away.