I could hope, on the most cloudless of sunsets...
Cranes
Always the Dead Trees
It is always the dead trees, unlushed, that remind
The Mobbing of a Bluejay
Somewhere, beyond the thicket of all this noise...
riff on a beam
Precarious, this light that hangs from a fissure,ties itself to a wet rail with a tendril and pulls,as if the nether side of a storm breaks,upturned and pillowed in a thimbleless pool. On the plains, shipwrecks poke their prows cotillion,sway in the studied drift of sorghum and wheatthreshed in the hoglight of another wet afternoon.But... Continue Reading →
Let One Skittish Robin
Approach the window.Let one skittish robin triggera flock. Starlings, juncoes, jays,a few gaunt sparrows will allupon a shadow split, as ifamong them a hawk had slipped. It is morning again. Shake offyour red-tail night as they —with chittered alarm, a fury of wings,and all that vexed your harried sleep,as you stare through a window,will flee... Continue Reading →
Consolation
Published in "Poetic Medicine in the Time of Pandemic" ©2020 by Lotus Leaf LLC.
The Still Travail
I’ve been nowhere for years,save the backyard. Once,high at the gutters with wet leaves,whirlies and grit, I saw Khartoumand Petra. And once, from the maple,cutting a rogue limb, I saw Rioand Milan, all among grass clippingsfermenting in bags, wood firesand propane, burnt steaksand green treated lumber, crosscutfor a shed the next sea over,rolled in on... Continue Reading →
Winter Kill
It is 4 a.m.,and a black dog breakscrust on old snow - stumbles.And a full moon loomsto reveal just easta crackling of limbs felledby gathered frosts and westa barn owl arcs silent - a slurryof cream, hunger and brownwinter kill hovered and plungedby moon and yellow porchlight.A black dog stiffens and sniffs -limbs give no... Continue Reading →
But For The Pheasant
But for the pheasant’s coppered wing the fieldsin sculpted snows ne’er bring the promised yieldsnor pleasures found ‘til light does crest the riseat dawn and ambers claw upon the eyes. To wake and wonder here among such thingsas iridescence glides there down and bringsunto these smothered lands and frostbit handsa hope that winter’s scoff no... Continue Reading →
The Felling
When the lastsoftpoplarfell,and the bluejays - the bluejays -rolled out; When the mangled nestspilled outthese mouths,these bentfeatheredtufts; When the chainsaw stilledits shriek and whir; When thick air closedabout us; When the larger jaysswept off the elmand veined away -blue lines on a blue sky,blue abandon in a blueeye; It was then,in the clearing of dead... Continue Reading →
