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The Sun Shines Fluidly on Every House, a poem by John Kruschke


The Sun Shines Fluidly on Every House


The sun shines fluidly on every house, 

spilling over the sheep and cattle 

in view of the cowboy brothers (twins 

– by different fathers – it’s a long story), 

while at the water’s edge a crab 

scuttles unnoticed by a cat 

dozing beside an adolescent girl 

weighing her options, curious

of the scorpion poised 

at the hooves of a centaur (yes, 

a half-horse man roams this landscape)

with bow and arrow slung open-carry, 

galloping to meet his chimeric brethren 

the sea-goat at the seaside where

a gorgeous boy pours them wine

and two fish swim together

connected by a luminous thread, 

which, star by star, connects to every 

creature in this scene because 

the sun shone fluidly in every house

the day each one was born, 

and would keep shining even if 

the cat appraised its options, 

and the scorpion claimed to be crab

and the bull converted to ram

and the brothers came out as fishes

and the centaur dressed as a sea-goat

and the boy became a girl.


John K. Kruschke has 25 quatrains published as chapter epigraphs, and other poems published in The Tipton Poetry Journal and accepted at The Ryder Magazine. He also published numerous articles in scientific journals on topics ranging across moral psychology, learning theory, and Bayesian statistics. He has lived in Bloomington, Indiana for 35 years.