1630 Nature poems

Very small and damaged and quite dry, a Roman water nymph made of bone tries to summon a river out of limestone very eroded faded her left arm missing and both legs from the knee down a Roman water nymph made of bone tries to summon a river out of limestone exhausted        utterly worn down a Roman water nymph made of bone being the last known speaker of her language she tries to summon a river out of limestone little distant sound of dry grass        try again a Roman water nymph made of bone very endangered now in a largely unintelligible monotone she tries to summon a river out of limestone little distant sound as of dry grass     try again exquisite bone figurine with upturned urn in her passionate self-esteem she smiles looking sideways she seemingly has no voice but a throat-clearing rustle as of dry grass                                        try again she tries leaning pouring pure outwardness out of a grey urn little slithering sounds as of a rabbit man in full night-gear, who lies so low in the rickety willowherb that a fox trots out of the woods and over his back and away              try again she tries leaning pouring pure outwardness out of a grey urn little lapping sounds        yes as of dry grass secretly drinking        try again little lapping sounds    yes as of dry grass secretly drinking        try again Roman bone figurine year after year in a sealed glass case having lost the hearing of her surroundings she struggles to summon a river out of limestone little shuffling sound as of approaching slippers year after year in a sealed glass case a Roman water nymph made of bone she struggles to summon a river out of limestone little shuffling sound as of a nearly dried-up woman not really moving through the fields having had the gleam taken out of her to the point where she resembles twilight        try again little shuffling clicking she opens the door of the church little distant sounds of shut-away singing    try again little whispering fidgeting of a shut-away congregation wondering who to pray to little patter of eyes closing                                    try again very small and damaged and quite dry a Roman water nymph made of bone she pleads she pleads a river out of limestone little hobbling tripping of a nearly dried-up river not really moving through the fields, having had the gleam taken out of it to the point where it resembles twilight. little grumbling shivering last-ditch attempt at a river more nettles than water                                        try again very speechless very broken old woman her left arm missing and both legs from the knee down she tries to summon a river out of limestone little stoved-in sucked thin low-burning glint of stones rough-sleeping and trembling and clinging to its rights victim of Swindon puddle midden slum of over-greened foot-churn and pats whose crayfish are cheap tool-kits made of the mud stirred up when a stone's lifted it's a pitiable likeness of clear running struggling to keep up with what's already gone the boat the wheel the sluice gate the two otters larricking along                                     go on and they say oh they say in the days of better rainfall it would flood through five valleys there'd be cows and milking stools washed over the garden walls and when it froze you could skate for five miles      yes go on little loose end shorthand unrepresented beautiful disused route to the sea fish path with nearly no fish in

The way a crow Shook down on me The dust of snow From a hemlock tree Has given my heart A change of mood And saved some part Of a day I had rued.

I talk to the orchids on my kitchen Counter most days—ask forgiveness of them— Understand they are lost and far from home And alone in alien soil with smells Of meat in their stamens and dogs barking And timers going off—I do my best To make my world a jungle where they grow Their pale flowers and die warm in the steam Coming off kettles and dinner plates. I can’t look at anything anymore Without seeing the bones under the skin— The lips of the ventriloquist moving— The hunger in everything wants out— Held hostage to the coming bite— I place the fallen brown petals in the unmarked Grave of my poem where no one can disturb The mad flowers of the exiled king.

It will not stay. But this morning we wake to pale muslin stretched across the grass. The pumpkins, still in the fields, are planets shrouded by clouds. The Weber wears a dunce cap and sits in the corner by the garage where asters wrap scarves around their necks to warm their blooms. The leaves, still soldered to their branches by a frozen drop of dew, splash apple and pear paint along the roadsides. It seems we have glanced out a window into the near future, mid-December, say, the black and white photo of winter carefully laid over the present autumn, like a morning we pause at the mirror inspecting the single strand of hair that overnight has turned to snow.

Earth rais'd up her head, From the darkness dread & drear. Her light fled: Stony dread! And her locks cover'd with grey despair. Prison'd on watry shore Starry Jealousy does keep my den Cold and hoar Weeping o'er I hear the Father of the ancient men Selfish father of men Cruel, jealous, selfish fear Can delight Chain'd in night The virgins of youth and morning bear. Does spring hide its joy When buds and blossoms grow? Does the sower? Sow by night? Or the plowman in darkness plow? Break this heavy chain, That does freeze my bones around Selfish! vain! Eternal bane! That free Love with bondage bound.

The earth shakes just enough to remind us.

Can you imagine waking up every morning on a different planet, each with its own gravity? Slogging, wobbling, wavering. Atilt and out-of-sync with all that moves and doesn’t. Through years of trial and mostly error did I study this unsteady way — changing pills, adjusting the dosage, never settling. A long time we were separate, O Earth, but now you have returned to me.

The Afterlife 1 Spring, and the first full crop of dandelions gone to smoke, the lawn lumpish with goldfinches, hunched in their fluffs, fattened by seed, alight in the wind-bared peduncular forest. Little bells, they loop and dive, bend the delicate birch branches down. I would enter the sky through the soil myself, sing up the snail bowers and go on the lam with the roots. Licked by filaments, I would lie, a billion love-mouths to suckle and feed. Where the river will be next week, a puddle two trout go savagely dying in. Notice the bland, Darwinian sand: bone wrack and tree skin, the ground down moon bowls of mussels, viral stones dividing like mold. At twelve, I buried the frog because it was dead and dug it up because I'd been dreaming— a fish belly light, a lowly chirruped chorus of amens. I thought my nights might smell of hell. Bland, hum-drum, quotidian guilt— if I've killed one frog, I've killed two. Saint Rot and the sacraments of maggots: knowing is humus and sustenance is sex. It accrues and accrues, it stews tumorous with delight. Tomorrow's a shovelful, the spit of the cosmos, one day the baby's breath is no longer a rose.

In the earthquake days I could not hear you over the din or it might have been the dinner bell but that’s odd because I’m usually the one cooking if not dinner then a plan to build new fault lines through the dangerous valley. I can’t give you an answer right now because I’m late for my 
resurrection, the one where I step into my angel offices and fuck the sun senseless. That eclipse last week? Because of me. You’re welcome. The postman rattles up with your counter offer and I’m off to a yoga class avoiding your call yes like the plague because son you can read in the dark and I have no hiding place left. You know me too well and you know it. We walk hand in hand down the hill into the Castro avoiding the nudist protest not because we are afraid but because we already know all about this city, its engineered 
foundations, the earthquake-proofed buildings, the sea walls. No tempest will catch us unaware while we claim our share of the province of penumbral affections. You have no reason to trust me but I swear I lie down in this metal box as it thunders and looks inside my brain. I am terrified nothing is wrong because otherwise how will I rewrite the maps unmoored a deep sea a moor a cosmonaut Who needs saving more than the one who forgot how the lazy cartographer mislabeled his birthplace as Loss? Riding the bus out to the end of the lines and back I collect trash for art, oil spill, spent forest, the mind is at work and everything is at stake. I demand statehood for my states of mind, senators for my failure, my disappointment, the slander and my brain unmapped reveals no explanation for danger the ground untamed. I make paintings of nothing and stand before them like mirrors. I recently became a man but I do not want to let go of my weakness, instead want to meet God in heaven and in long psychotropic odes have Him send me again digging in the dirt to unleash tantric animal governors to lay down the orgasmic law twice skewered and miserable in the old photographs, miserable in my body, huddled next to my mother, recently permed and aglow so unaware of what is about to hit her. I am the answer to Bhanu’s question: “Who is responsible for the suffering of your mother?” and so sick I considered that sickness could bring us closer and Shahid and Allen in heaven slap me silly because they want me to know that this world is worth its trembling. At the next table over a mother tries to reconcile her bickering sons. I have no brother but the one I invent has always got my back, he drowns out the mullahs so my mother can hear me finally. In a different book Jesus never suffered, never was flogged or died went whole into heaven without passion. Shall I then deny myself passport through the stark places unsalvageable, imagine it, the Mother of Sorrows did never grieve in the new season trees smell of semen and the tectonic plates make their latest explosive move: to transubstantiate my claim by unveiling this city down to its stone. Everyone I know wants to douse the hungry flames, flee the endless aftershocks, unravel every vexing question. You owe me this witness. I owe you the fire.

To always be in motion there is no choice even for the mountain and its frigid cousins floating on the oceans that even sluggish seethe and moan and laugh out loud at their own jokes. How "like the human heart" can be said of pert near everything, pint of fizz, punching bag because all moves: the mouse, the house, the pelt of moon corresponding to the seas (see above) (now get back here) of mood, sadness heaving kelp at the sunken city's face, gladness somersaulting from the eaves like a kid's drawing of a snowflake. No matter how stalled I seem, some crank in me tightens the whirly-spring each time I see your face so thank you for aiming it my way, all this flashing like polished brass, lightning, powder, step on the gas, whoosh we're halfway through our lives, fishmarkets flying by, Connecticut, glut then scarcity, hurried haircuts, smell of pencils sharpened, striving, falling short, surviving because we ducked or somehow got some shut-eye even though inside the hotel wall loud leaks. I love to watch the youthful flush drub your cheeks in your galloping dream. Maybe even death will be replenishment. Who knows? Who has the time, let's go, the unknown's display of emeralds closes in an hour, the fireworks' formula has changed, will we ever see that tangerine blue again, factory boarded up then turned into bowling lanes.