“Chimes, Heartbeats” by W. Hans Miller

Written ‘In Synergy’ with Gazing Again by Ed Barguiarena

Dropped in the middle
of the canyon
road

just notice, don’t get involved,
blackbirds big as eagles
screaming highwire family

Dropped in the middle
of a well-tempered clavier
chimes matching my heartbeat

sudden breeze
bending branches
cool again

Dropped in the middle of a sunshower,
filling the world with jasmine’s
sugared scent

no muscles needed
nothing more to say
an imagined poem

Dropped
in the middle
of an unwanted void


During a career practicing and teaching at UCLA’s Department of Psychiatry, W. Hans Miller published three books: Personal Stress Management for Medical Patients, Systematic Parent Training, and a memoir, Soothing: Lives of a Child Psychologist. His poems appear in or are currently forthcoming in Last Leaves, Last Stanza, and several anthologies from the Moonstone Poetry Center, including Haiku 2022, HOPE 2022, Nonsense Verse, and Struggling for Liberty. Miller recently published his first book of poems, Nancy’s Song: 21 Poems, and his chapbook Ever the End of Things is forthcoming from the Moonstone Poetry Center.