1630 Nature poems

I woke from a bird hitting the window, almost, I thought, hard enough to break it. The sun rose knowingly. I slid the sash up and stuck my head out like someone in an Italian movie. A flicker lay on its back—stunned—but it was blinking steady as a railroad crossing. Was there misery to put out? Would it come to its "senses"? I thought where were you when bark beetles killed half my trees? Then I remembered, sleepily, reading that flickers mostly eat ants. I went back to sleep for half an hour, and dreamed, as I often do, of horses. When next I looked, the bird still lay still, still blinking. Maybe, I thought, it can't roll over. So I went down and rolled it over. Terrified by my touch, it came to life and flop- hopped down the hill into some sagebrush. It didn't fly, but it didn't seem broken, either. I tried to find it later. No luck. Whether it lived and flew off, or died thrust into a bush, was, apparently, none of my business. If it were thrust into a bush, I knew the ants wouldn't wait for the guest of honor to start dinner.

...and a decrepit handful of trees. —Aleksandr Pushkin And I matured in peace born of command, in the nursery of the infant century, and the voice of man was never dear to me, but the breeze’s voice—that I could understand. The burdock and the nettle I preferred, but best of all the silver willow tree. Its weeping limbs fanned my unrest with dreams; it lived here all my life, obligingly. I have outlived it now, and with surprise. There stands the stump; with foreign voices other willows converse, beneath our, beneath those skies, and I am hushed, as if I’d lost a brother.

Because someone thirsty enough to trust Old Testament wisdom followed the deepening greens and found a spring, silver in the shadow of blue ridges, I can kneel beneath this spill of willow limbs a century later and drink water risen from roots to enter the evening through a spout, the way Cherokee stories say the first people were born, washing into the world of such trees whose bark, like the water I cup to my parched mouth, tastes leafy and sweet and has the power, the old ones say, to heal.

Not a remarkable wind. So when the bistro’s patio umbrella blew suddenly free and pitched into the middle of the road, it put a stop to the afternoon. Something white and amazing was blocking the way. A waiter in a clean apron appeared, not quite certain, shielding his eyes, wary of our rumbling engines. He knelt in the hot road, making two figures in white, one leaning over the sprawled, broken shape of the other, creaturely, great-winged, and now so carefully gathered in.

— after Lorca I want to always sleep beneath a bright red blanket of leaves. I want to never wear a coat of ice. I want to learn to walk without blinking. I want to outlive the turtle and the turtle’s father, the stone. I want a mouth full of permissions and a pink glistening bud. If the wildflower and ant hill can return after sleeping each season, I want to walk out of this house wearing nothing but wind. I want to greet you, I want to wait for the bus with you weighing less than a chill. I want to fight off the bolts of gray lighting the alcoves and winding paths of your hair. I want to fight off the damp nudgings of snow. I want to fight off the wind. I want to be the wind and I want to fight off the wind with its sagging banner of isolation, its swinging screen doors, its gilded boxes, and neatly folded pamphlets of noise. I want to fight off the dull straight lines of two by fours and endings, your disapprovals, your doubts and regulations, your carbon copies. If the locust can abandon its suit, I want a brand new name. I want the pepper’s fury and the salt’s tenderness. I want the virtue of the evening rain, but not its gossip. I want the moon’s intuition, but not its questions. I want the malice of nothing on earth. I want to enter every room in a strange electrified city and find you there. I want your lips around the bell of flesh at the bottom of my ear. I want to be the mirror, but not the nightstand. I do not want to be the light switch. I do not want to be the yellow photograph or book of poems. When I leave this body, Woman, I want to be pure flame. I want to be your song.

and on the waves in turmoil in the harbor gulls floated like pieces of paper set adrift, little boat-like birds twirling in the wind-tossed waves that drove into the strong arms of the seawall at the apex of the bay where a statue of Sappho stands, young woman with a lyre—not looking out to sea but glancing at the curve of the seawall and the birds, those lost notes before rain

The length of the wind runs from mid-May to murder. The length of the wind runs from January through joy. The wind runs as long as the right hand’s first finger points to the sun after thunder. The wind gallops prayerward like a horse held in the palm of a rock, no taller than a knee bent for the sake of singing. The wind weighs more than the fossilized horse and stretches from fingernail to praise. The length of the wind runs from mid-May to mercy, January through justice. Unto the broken, dwelling in a broken, promised land, the wind drops a hammer and some are warmed and some are chilled and some laugh and some die. Silently through the nuclear physicist, the wind wicks loud as paper-scraps trailing in the wind’s wake, igniting an empiricist, fragrant through tallow. The wind strikes the wind like rice in a paddy. The wind scatters petals like blossoms of napalm. The wind snaps the backs of malnourished conquistadors bowed down to gold. It is the wind who estimates poverty in moments by the method of moments, who assesses want in units of amass. It is the wind who shakes America by the ovaries, runs the length of revolution, all the calories in a dollar. The length of the wind runts from mid-March to hunger. The length of the wind grunts from Saturday through sorrow. The wind flutters nothing but orgasms and afterplay. The wind numbers seminarians more numinous than semen. The wind is a mote on the wind. The wind is the dust that measures time in footsteps. The wind is the word in the throat of the dust. The length of the wind runs from midwife to marvel. The wind ribbons out within mid-May and mourning and dust is the voice the wind whickers glory, the wind whickers grief.

Skywind, skillful disorder, Strong tumult walking over there, Wondrous man, rowdy-sounding, World hero, with neither foot nor wing. Yeast in cloud loaves, you were thrown out Of sky’s pantry, with not one foot, How swiftly you run, and so well This moment above the high hill. Tell me, north wind of the cwm, Your route, reliable hymn. Over the lengths of the world you fly, Tonight, hill weather, please stay high, Ah man, go over Upper Aeron Be lovely and cool, stay in clear tune. Don’t hang about or let that maniac, Litigious Little Bow, hold you back, He’s poisonous. Society And its goods are closed to me. Thief of nests, though you winnow leaves No one accuses you, nor impedes You, no band of men, nor magistrate’s hand, Nor blue blade, nor flood, nor rain. Indeed, no son of man can kill you, Fire won’t burn nor treason harm you. You shall not drown, as you’re aware, You’re never stuck, you’re angle-less air. No need of swift horse to get about, Nor bridge over water, nor any boat. No officer or force will hand you over To court for fingering treetop feathers. Sight cannot see you, wide-open den, But thousands hear you, nest of great rain. You are God’s grace across the world, The roar when breaking tops of oaks are hurled, You hang clouds’ notes in heavens’ score And dance athletically over moors Dry-humored, clever creature, Over clouds’ stepping-stones you travel far, Archer on fields of snow up high, Disperser of rubbish piles in loud cries. Storm that’s stirring up the sea Randy surfer where land meets sea. Bold poet, rhyming snowdrifts you are, Sower, scatterer of leaves you are, Clown of peaks, you get off scot-free, Hurler of mad-masted, foaming sea. I was lost once I felt desire For Morfudd of the golden hair. A girl has caused my disgrace, Run up to her father’s house, Knock on the door, make him open To my messenger before the dawn, Find her if there’s any way, Give song to the voice of my sigh. You come from unsullied stars, Tell my noble, generous her: For as long as I’m alive I will be her loyal slave. My face without her’s a mess If it’s true she’s not been faithless. Go up high, see the one who’s white, Go down below, sky’s favorite. Go to Morfudd Llwyd the fair, Come back safe, wealth of the air. Translated from the Welsh

for Roger Caillois Water hollows stone, wind scatters water, stone stops the wind. Water, wind, stone. Wind carves stone, stone's a cup of water, water escapes and is wind. Stone, wind, water. Wind sings in its whirling, water murmurs going by, unmoving stone keeps still. Wind, water, stone. Each is another and no other: crossing and vanishing through their empty names: water, stone, wind.

From this height the sunset spans the whole world before me: houses and trees are shadows neon flares between them like sudden fire the freeways run, always strangely vacant with riderless cars empty air the windows up here refract the blue slate and rose light making the hills on the horizon collide with ideas of Sussex, piedmont or the cold clear wind of the Abruzzi but that is never what is out there. At home, the lamp curls its aurora into the corners of the room and out the windows squares, rectangles of light stake out a territory on the ragged lawn. In the center of things between the pressing of the window and air — a small space — there is a meeting that defines nothing, everything.