Poems by Ross John Farrar

Future Tropical

by Ross John Farrar

From Canary Fall 2019

Ross lives 20 minutes north of San Francisco in an area blessed with trails, swimming holes, national parks and the great natural beauty of the Pacific coast. The area’s most striking feature is Mt. Tamalpais, the highest peak in the Marin hills, which can be seen from virtually any vantage point in town.

We will go to Glendale Blvd to watch the parrots sit.
They will move their heads, sensual & slow, or raise a talon
to let us know they are real & we will smile at this.

The window will say “Pampered Birds” & we will think
about comfort,
that we are human & want to be touched.

Like the time we danced in Koreatown, how I almost
dropped you
during the dip. A naked man played his piano in the corner
while we were unaware of the water slowly creeping up our
legs
& over our heads.

But at that window we will not remember this.
We will only see a false paradise–the violent red of a
feather,
the jet-black hook of their beaks.

A woman will open the door to let her children in & again
& again we will go back to this moment only to find brute change –
the birds repeating a phrase, but we cannot hear it
through the glass.

Previously published in The Chaffey Review