1630 Nature poems

i. Spring the tips of each pine the spikes of telephone poles hold gathering crows may’s errant mustard spreads wild across paved road look both ways roadside treble cleft feeding gopher, paws to mouth cheeks puffed with music yesterday’s spring wind ruffling the grey tips of fur rabbit dandelion ii. Summer turkey vulture feeds mechanical as a red oil rig head rocks down up down stiff-legged dog rises goes grumbling after squirrel old ears still flap snowy egret—curves, lines, sculpted against pond blue; white clouds against sky banded headed bird this ballerina killdeer dance on point my heart iii. Fall leaf wind cold through coat wails over hills, through barren trees empty garbage cans dance damp September night lone farmer, lighted tractor drive memory’s worn path sky black with migration flocks settle on barren trees leaf birds, travel songs october moon cast over corn, lighted fields crinkled sheaves of white iv. Winter ground painted in frost thirsty morning sun drinks white leaves rust golds return winter bare branches hold tattered cups of summer empty nests trail twigs lace edges of ice manna against darkened sky words turn with weather now one to seven deer or haiku syllables weave through winter trees Northern follows jig body flashes with strike, dive: broken line floats up.

Customs and chemistry made a name for themselves and it was Spot. He's gone to some utopos now, the dirty dog, doctor of crotches, digger of holes. Your airy clarities be damned, he loved our must and our mistakes — why hit him, then, who did us good? He's dead, he ought to be at home. He's damned put out, and so am I. *       *       * When blue is carried out, the law is red. When noon is said and done, it's dusk again. The greed for table makes the greed for bed. So cave canem, even stars have litters — little lookers, cacklers, killers . . . Morning raises up the hackled men. (What's milk, among our ilk, but opportunity for spillers?) *       *       * He saved our sorry highfalutin souls — the heavens haven't saved a fly. Orion's canniness who can condone? — that starring story, strapping blade! — and Sirius is  just a Fido joke — no laughter shakes the firmament. But O the family dog, the Buddha-dog — son of a bitch! he had a funny bone —

Darkness spills across the sky like an oil plume. The moon reflects bleached coral. Tonight, let us praise the sacrificed. Praise the souls of  black boys, enslaved by supply chains, who carry bags of cacao under West African heat. “Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat,” sings a girl dressed as a Disney princess. Let us praise the souls of   brown girls who sew our clothes as fire unthreads sweatshops into smoke and ash. “Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good,” whisper kids disguised as ninjas. Tonight, let us praise the souls of Asian children who manufacture toys and tech until gravity sharpens their bodies enough to cut through suicide nets. “Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me,” shout boys camouflaged as soldiers. Let us praise the souls of  veterans who salute with their guns because only triggers will pull God into their ruined temples. “Trick or treat, smell my feet,” chant kids masquerading as cowboys and Indians. Tonight, let us praise the souls of native youth, whose eyes are open-pit uranium mines, veins are poisoned rivers, hearts are tar sands tailings ponds. “Trick or treat,” says a boy dressed as the sun. Let us praise El Niño, his growing pains, praise his mother, Ocean, who is dying in a warming bath among dead fish and refugee children. Let us praise our mothers of  asthma, mothers of  cancer clusters, mothers of miscarriage —pray for us— because our costumes won’t hide the true cost of our greed. Praise our mothers of  lost habitats, mothers of  fallout, mothers of extinction —pray for us— because even tomorrow will be haunted —leave them, leave us, leave—

Bulkeley, Hunt, Willard, Hosmer, Meriam, Flint, Possessed the land which rendered to their toil Hay, corn, roots, hemp, flax, apples, wool, and wood. Each of these landlords walked amidst his farm, Saying, “’Tis mine, my children’s and my name’s. How sweet the west wind sounds in my own trees! How graceful climb those shadows on my hill! I fancy these pure waters and the flags Know me, as does my dog: we sympathize; And, I affirm, my actions smack of the soil.” Where are these men? Asleep beneath their grounds: And strangers, fond as they, their furrows plough. Earth laughs in flowers, to see her boastful boys Earth-proud, proud of the earth which is not theirs; Who steer the plough, but cannot steer their feet Clear of the grave. They added ridge to valley, brook to pond, And sighed for all that bounded their domain; “This suits me for a pasture; that’s my park; We must have clay, lime, gravel, granite-ledge, And misty lowland, where to go for peat. The land is well,—lies fairly to the south. ’Tis good, when you have crossed the sea and back, To find the sitfast acres where you left them.” Ah! the hot owner sees not Death, who adds Him to his land, a lump of mould the more. Hear what the Earth say:— EARTH-SONG “Mine and yours; Mine, not yours. Earth endures; Stars abide— Shine down in the old sea; Old are the shores; But where are old men? I who have seen much, Such have I never seen. “The lawyer’s deed Ran sure, In tail, To them and to their heirs Who shall succeed, Without fail, Forevermore. “Here is the land, Shaggy with wood, With its old valley, Mound and flood. But the heritors?— Fled like the flood's foam. The lawyer and the laws, And the kingdom, Clean swept herefrom. “They called me theirs, Who so controlled me; Yet every one Wished to stay, and is gone, How am I theirs, If they cannot hold me, But I hold them?” When I heard the Earth-song I was no longer brave; My avarice cooled Like lust in the chill of the grave.

And there are Two birds In this poem A loon Hand-carved From balsa And a snakebird On the tide Of the river The oily head Of a water bird Cuts surface And glides Along by Tarred wooden Racks Ideograms Oyster farms Low on the tide Lower than The hand-carved Loon it looks Hardly buoyant A bird From two Worlds it knows The murk On the bottom And waves Crinkled by sun It swims As well As a black trevally Sleek and fast A challenge to Handcrafted birds To all things made up

given to look into    the bowl of sky for it to fill with future see it turned upside down on the grass see the ladle pass hear the god underneath calling his inside the heavenly vault    eternal how that bump reminds me    how we saw it once from the underside of Nut    a mother's belly see dissolve against her vast ground the drowned cloud of black lives    the solution's population of rain crowding the city in the belly see it now as the sea extended the drowned city     lit     in this sky see our sky the bone clouds casting African tomorrows   only an arm    black balletic cloud extends itself dark nimbic invertebrate squall I am handed rain by a portuguese man-o-war These are new skies once we absorb the seas' solution as the bodies lost the sting fire of lightning    flesh the water body air we drown together in our living to drink from this bone

Off-season and in the burnt forest of my nightgown, a feral undergrowth that marks me as burial site— to be still enough or just enough. My arms become fat arms: hearth. I eat dirt for doubt, a secret bleached old as lie. I out-want like a spindly winged monster. If I were a bug— were I—then you'd hope for reparation, and paint more brown into the plot.

Is made up of reservoirs, Birds flying South, mailmen Snow falling or rain falling, Railmen, Howard Johnson and airmen Birds of Paradise Silk lined caskets Prize poems and guitars, Beatitudes and bestiaries, Children taught contemporary manners, Time taking time away With a haymaker or a sleigh, Hope always belaboring despair. Form is a jostle, a throstle, Life a slice of sleight, Indians are looking out from the Cheekbones of Connecticut Yankees, Poltergeists deploy northward To tinderboxes in cupboards in Maine, The last chock knocked, the vessel Would not go down the Damariscotta Until the sick captain’s four-poster, Moved to the window by four oldsters Gave him a sight of her, and He gave her a beautiful sign, And there was the witch of Nobleboro Who confounded the native farmers Who, having lost the plow-bolt Right at their feet, found it Concealed in her apron: she laughed, And made the earth fecund again. The hard structure of the world, The world structure of illusion. From seeing too much of the world We do not understand it. There is something unknown in knowing. Unfaith is what keeps faith going.

The last days of the summer: bright and clear Shines the warm sun down on the quiet land, Where corn-fields, thick and heavy in the ear, Are slowly ripening for the laborer’s hand; Seed-time and harvest — since the bow was set, Not vainly has man hoped your coming yet! To the quick rush of sickles, joyously The reapers in the yellow wheat-fields sung, And bound the pale sheaves of the ripened rye, When the first tassels of the maize were hung; That precious seed into the furrow cast Earliest in spring-time, crowns the harvest last. Ever, when summer’s sun burns faint and dim, And rare and few the pleasant days are given, When the sweet praise of our thankgiving hymn Makes beautiful music in the ear of Heaven, I think of other harvests whence the sound Of singing comes not as the sheaves are bound. Not where the rice-fields whiten in the sun, And the warm South casts down her yellow fruit, Shout they the labors of the autumn done — For there Oppression casts her deadly root, And they, who sow and gather in that clime Share not the treasures of the harvest-time. God of the seasons! thou who didst ordain Bread for the eater who shall plant the soil, How have they heard thee, who have forged the chain And built the dungeon for the sons of toil? Burdening their hearts, not with the voice of prayer, But the dull cries of almost dumb despair. They who would see that growth of wickedness Planted where now the peaceful prairie waves, And make the green paths of our wilderness Red with the torn and bleeding feet of slaves — Forbid it, Heaven! and let the sharp axe be Laid at the root of that most poison tree! Let us behold its deadly leaves begin A fainter shadow o’er the world to cast, And the long day that nursed its growth of sin Wane to a sunset that shall be its last; So that the day-star, rising from the sea, Shall light a land whose children will be free!

The forest is the only place where green is green and blue is blue. Walking the forest I have seen most everything. I’ve seen a you with yellow eyes and busted wing. And deep in the forest, no one knew.