1630 Nature poems

for Pat Silliman XII A guide to the sky under full nondisclosure. Dawn in the bare birch trees, the sun, swollen, throbs over the horizon. Hotel buffet doodah. Two dogs dancing, sniffing one another’s genitalia. One can hear the electricity wired in the walls, water rushing through the pipes, the boards and joints of the old house groaning as they settle. Map of morning. Winter light. One’s experience of the transfer point air- port as that of the city itself. Dear winter, it’s 5:15 AM. Shoes for Mickey Mouse. Waste deep in the big muddy. The sound of rain around. The line (not visible) binds letters into words. People are drowning. Moon, broken in the middle. What a watch watches. Song of the single en- gine Cessna, threading the pre-dawn sky. One bird, one bird, many. Blades of grass brittle in the freeze. Spider’s corner of the bath room. One maple tree that will not return to life.

You with the knees of a fish, You with the fish's ears, the tongue in your round Mouth that's nibbling the sweet air, You with a fish's patience, on your side Under the hot plank ot the keel, hook in your lip, And your tail twitching like a bothered lily, And the taste of your own bleeding on the air, salt on the sweetness, You with a fish's voice, singing and still Your aria, and the blue-silver flecks of light, The water's scales, breathing the breeze Abundant and not for you, you with a hook, Absurd, you with lidless mercuried eyes; And the reel whistles, the tall man's cast at you.

It's a bug's world of intrigue and mystery, with humans a blip in their history. So when insects flitter and scurry past us Take note, because they may outlast us!

The water understands Civilization well; It wets my foot, but prettily, It chills my life, but wittily, It is not disconcerted, It is not broken-hearted: Well used, it decketh joy, Adorneth, doubleth joy: Ill used, it will destroy, In perfect time and measure With a face of golden pleasure Elegantly destroy.

On hot days we would see them leaving the hive in swarms. June and I would watch them weave their way through the sugarberry trees toward the pond where they would stop to take a drink, then buzz their way back, plump and full of water, to drop it on the backs of the fanning bees. If you listened you could hear them, their tiny wings beating in unison as they cooled down the hive. My brother caught one once, its bulbous body bursting with water, beating itself against the smooth glass wall of the canning jar. He lit a match, dropped it in, but nothing happened. The match went out and the bee swam through the mix of sulfur and smoke until my brother let it out. It flew straight back to the hive. Later, we skinny-dipped in the pond, the three of us, the August sun melting the world around us as if it were wax. In the cool of the evening, we walked home, pond water still dripping from our skin, glistening and twinkling like starlight.

Spout of a leaf, listen out for the screams of your relentless audience: the applause of a waterfall in the distance, a hurricane looting a Miami shopping mall. How careful you are with the rain-cradling curve of your back. Near your forest, all are ready to swim and happy to drown in me: this lake of fire that moats the edges. From my mouth, they come to peel the flames and drink their slick throats into the most silent of ashes.

(To William and Flora Johnstone) Wheesht, wheesht, Joyce, and let me hear Nae Anna Livvy’s lilt, But Wauchope, Esk, and Ewes again, Each wi’ its ain rhythms till’t.

The Body as Nature, History All motivations intermingle as the core of history, the internal becomes external... all as parts of the body. — maurice merleau-ponty i.               the positing of space, corporeal history medium of my body

for New Orleans and the people of the Gulf Coast water water water wind water across the land shape of a torn heart new orleans waves come louisiana the waves come alabama wind calls alabama and the roofs blow across red clouds inside the divine spiral there is a voice inside the voice there is light water wind fire smoke the bodies float and rise kind flames bow down and move across the skies never seen blackish red bluish bruised water rises houses fall the child the elders the mothers underwater who will live who will rise the windows fill with the howling where is the transfusion where is the lamp who who in the wet night jagged in the oil waves come the lakes loosen their sultry shape it is the shape of a lost hand a wing broken casinos in biloxi become carnations across the sands and the woman in the wheelchair descends her last breath a rose in the razor rain uptown on mansion hill even the million dollar house bows in the negative shade someone is afloat a family dissolves the nation disappears neighborhoods fade across lost streets the police dressed in newspapers flutter toward nothingness moons who goes there under our floors filtered wooden stars towels and glass gasoline coffins the skin of trees and jalopy tires fish bebop dead from the zoo the dogs half drag ward number nine miss Symphony Spikes and mrs. Hardy Johnson the new plankton new algae of the nameless stroll in the dark ask the next question about kindness then there is a bus a taxi a hearse a helicopter a rescue team a tiny tribe of nine year olds separating the waters the oils and ashes hear the song of splinters and blood tree sap machine oil and old jazz trumpeters z's and x's raffia skirts and jujube hats and a father man holds the hand of his lover saying take care of the children let me go now let me stumble stumble nowhere drink this earth liquor going in petals stadiums and looters celebrities cameras cases more water cases again and again a new land edge emerges a new people emerges where race and class and death and life and water and tears and loss and life and death destruction and life and tears compassion and loss and a fire stolen bus rumbles toward you all directions wherever you are alive still

Ae weet forenicht i’ the yow-trummle I saw yon antrin thing, A watergaw wi’ its chitterin’ licht Ayont the on-ding; An’ I thocht o’ the last wild look ye gied Afore ye deed! There was nae reek i’ the laverock’s hoose That nicht—an’ nane i’ mine; But I hae thocht o’ that foolish licht Ever sin’ syne; An’ I think that mebbe at last I ken What your look meant then.