1630 Nature poems

We finished clearing the last Section of trail by noon, High on the ridge-side Two thousand feet above the creek Reached the pass, went on Beyond the white pine groves, Granite shoulders, to a small Green meadow watered by the snow, Edged with Aspen—sun Straight high and blazing But the air was cool. Ate a cold fried trout in the Trembling shadows. I spied A glitter, and found a flake Black volcanic glass—obsidian— By a flower. Hands and knees Pushing the Bear grass, thousands Of arrowhead leavings over a Hundred yards. Not one good Head, just razor flakes On a hill snowed all but summer, A land of fat summer deer, They came to camp. On their Own trails. I followed my own Trail here. Picked up the cold-drill, Pick, singlejack, and sack Of dynamite. Ten thousand years.

Bloody hell, the world’s turned upside down the flame tree has become geranium my coral bed has grown into a tree the hummingbird you hammered to the wall though tin, could any moment turn and flee. The yellow sky has gone all roundabout and clover threes where seaweed used to be and blood blossoms with fire, the powers below grow higher — if things turn right-way-up will the falling fire stop? The wave is in the hill the nest abandons me and all the reddened earth is still igniting

We stopped at a farmer’s house before parking at the dock that creaked over the river. Rowboats for rent, five bucks an hour, twenty for the day. Deep water: I knew a canvas bag was in the trunk. I knew lunch would be roast beef sandwiches and hot stew from a thermos, chunks of carrot and potatoes cut by my mother who slept through the racket of our leaving. While my father paid, I loaded the boat with our poles and tackle boxes, lead sinkers shaped like grey pears, raincoats and a case of beer. I was ten and I knew my dad would toss that canvas bag into the aluminum boat with a thunk. We fish for gar with kittens, he’d yelled last night at my mother, and that was that. The rowboat slid from the dock, the occasional clunk of the first six-pack clipped on the fish stringer, and I knew that I should take my time fastening the wire leader to the brass swivel, tying on those massive sinkers. I knew that the six-inch treble hook would tremble in my hands, and when I was done, I knew what came next, a canvas bag, stiff kittens, blood. I tore two hooks through the side of a calico, yanked upward with a sharp tug to lodge the third barb beneath the ribs. I dangled my fingers in cold water to wash them, then reared the rod back into a cast that splashed twenty feet from the boat. He popped the third beer and finished baiting his hook. Too deep for an anchor, we drifted, and far beneath, the gar cruised back and forth, their prehistoric snouts slicing the dark, bumping our bait again and again until that fierce hunger I was learning said clamp down and take it.

The creek is lower this summer than last summer i've been coming here since i was a kid the rocks the creek used to cover are showing now dry and pale like something not meant to be seen

The meadow in july is full of things i can't name insects and grasses and the particular silence that comes from everything being busy i sat in it for an hour doing nothing that counted except being there

A handful of soil contains more living things than there are people on earth i think about that when people say nature needs to be saved it saves itself we're the problem

You can feel a storm coming before the rain the pressure drops and the birds get quiet and the air has an opinion i love the before

The wind moved through the grass and the grass moved in a wave that started somewhere else everything moves because something else moved first

i came back to the same campsite after twelve years the trees were taller and the fire pit was someone else's rocks everything returns to something but not to itself

The river doesn't care what day it is doesn't mark its own seasons it rises and it goes without ceremony i've been watching rivers for years trying to learn this