1630 Nature poems

The redbreast kills and kills itself against the window Sooner or later the blood in the breast will break the window into hundreds of pieces you can swallow whole Keep swallowing The redbreast loves you and wants you to remember the love So it makes you puke into the toilet blind I was blinded by love And drowned in an empty bathtub spitting up birdshit Covered in red feathers • Sometimes the redbreast likes anting with lit cigarettes safety pins paper cuts God that feels good It wraps everything in pretty pink gauze the color of fake sunset Look it is a pink soul! It wants to get naked and it wants it to hurt Red teeth red toes Open mouths Who keeps pressing my head into the sidewalk inside the bathroom Who keeps the lights on the lights stay on Who dissolves on my tongue Who flies from my finger • The redbreast sits inside behind your left eye behind your right and cleans its babies with its beak Scrubs its babies clean Shakes its tail feathers to scour the floor behind your forehead and scours the floor red My brain is a cutter My initials are beats per second Scrubbed down to zero by the rubies in the halo I whispered your name into the red air and you answered

. . . makes a noisy entry into Texas like tumbling file cabinets. Four mountains Four creeks Four forts Four suns Four seasons Four nations—Comanche, Kiowa, Cheyenne, Arapaho * At Yellow House Canyon the river turns tight. Talons skim the water, waves confirm dawn. With white sheets tied around their waists Tonkawa scouts cannibalistically count out a bag of children’s hands. Seated in a silver Concho saddle, Death’s dirty sergeant lights up his ceremonial breathing leaf. * Where Cache Creek empties into the Red River is a nerve center of war. There Velroy fought the gruesome brotherhood: Blue Corpse, Smallpox, and the Creeper, cruel 300 lb nymphs. They tried to strip his body of Carbon-14 atoms. Velroy, knowledgeable in the Flying Crane Technique of Kung-Fu, drop-kicked Blue Corpse in the windpipe simultaneously breaking his neck in three places. He tricked The Creeper with his own taboo. By passing wolf’s milk and tequila through a hole in an oak tree, it made The Creeper vomit up his own stomach. Velroy quickly buried it, turning him into a tree. Smallpox challenged Velroy to a dance-off. It took place on top of the creek. While Smallpox was doing a head spin, Velroy pulled the cardboard out from under him. Smallpox dropped into the water and drowned. * Snake Woman sits in the deep, a cinema of silver scales. Her hair moves like meadow grass in flood water. * Members of the Black Knife Society crossed the south fork of the river on horseback in a V-formation. They possess gear simultaneously musical and military: a stretched skin to serve as both shield and drum, and a club, sword, or lance that is also a drumstick. * At the Red River Ute chief cuts my guitar strings Ute women love Punk

the live oak over the nursery got a disease they could only save one limb it wasn’t surprising; it wasn’t that kind of nursery a girl rode her red tricycle around the bottom of the pool the pool had no water; it hadn’t rained the girl kept smelling her hand it smelled like honeywheat, or the inside of a girl’s panties someone said, race you she nodded okay and pedaled like hell after three laps no one had passed her she looked over her shoulder, lost her balance ripped her hands & knees on the blue concrete the one limb on the live oak curved like a question would she need stitches again there was already ink under her skin & iodine on her tongue or was it the other way around she could see black thread bunching sewing centipedes under her skin her throat burned and she couldn’t move her legs it wasn’t a tricycle it was something she couldn’t get her foot out from under she hated to stop or lose her shoe and, I’m sorry the pool was full of water

so much depends upon a red wheel barrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens

Cold blew the freezing northern blast, And winter sternly frowned; The flaky snow fell thick and fast, And clad the fields around. Forced by the storm’s relentless power, Emboldened by despair, A shivering redbreast sought my door, Some friendly warmth to share. ‘Welcome, sweet bird!’ I fondly cried, ‘No danger need’st thou fear, Secure with me thou may’st abide, Till warmer suns appear. ‘And when mild spring comes smiling on, And bids the fields look gay, Thou, with thy sweet, thy grateful song, My kindness shalt repay.’ Mistaken thought! — But how shall I The mournful truth display? An envious cat, with jealous eye, Had marked him as her prey. Remorseless wretch! — her cruel jaws Soon sealed her victim’s doom, While I in silence mourn his loss, And weep o’er robin’s tomb. So, oft in life’s uneven way, Some stroke may intervene; Sweep all our fancied joys away, And change the flattering scene.

Out through the fields and the woods And over the walls I have wended; I have climbed the hills of view And looked at the world, and descended; I have come by the highway home, And lo, it is ended. The leaves are all dead on the ground, Save those that the oak is keeping To ravel them one by one And let them go scraping and creeping Out over the crusted snow, When others are sleeping. And the dead leaves lie huddled and still, No longer blown hither and thither; The last lone aster is gone; The flowers of the witch hazel wither; The heart is still aching to seek, But the feet question ‘Whither?’ Ah, when to the heart of man Was it ever less than a treason To go with the drift of things, To yield with a grace to reason, And bow and accept the end Of a love or a season?

All I could see from where I stood Was three long mountains and a wood; I turned and looked another way, And saw three islands in a bay. So with my eyes I traced the line Of the horizon, thin and fine, Straight around till I was come Back to where I'd started from; And all I saw from where I stood Was three long mountains and a wood. Over these things I could not see; These were the things that bounded me; And I could touch them with my hand, Almost, I thought, from where I stand. And all at once things seemed so small My breath came short, and scarce at all. But, sure, the sky is big, I said; Miles and miles above my head; So here upon my back I'll lie And look my fill into the sky. And so I looked, and, after all, The sky was not so very tall. The sky, I said, must somewhere stop, And—sure enough!—I see the top! The sky, I thought, is not so grand; I 'most could touch it with my hand! And reaching up my hand to try, I screamed to feel it touch the sky. I screamed, and—lo!—Infinity Came down and settled over me; Forced back my scream into my chest, Bent back my arm upon my breast, And, pressing of the Undefined The definition on my mind, Held up before my eyes a glass Through which my shrinking sight did pass Until it seemed I must behold Immensity made manifold; Whispered to me a word whose sound Deafened the air for worlds around, And brought unmuffled to my ears The gossiping of friendly spheres, The creaking of the tented sky, The ticking of Eternity. I saw and heard, and knew at last The How and Why of all things, past, And present, and forevermore. The Universe, cleft to the core, Lay open to my probing sense That, sick'ning, I would fain pluck thence But could not,—nay! But needs must suck At the great wound, and could not pluck My lips away till I had drawn All venom out.—Ah, fearful pawn! For my omniscience paid I toll In infinite remorse of soul. All sin was of my sinning, all Atoning mine, and mine the gall Of all regret. Mine was the weight Of every brooded wrong, the hate That stood behind each envious thrust, Mine every greed, mine every lust. And all the while for every grief, Each suffering, I craved relief With individual desire,— Craved all in vain! And felt fierce fire About a thousand people crawl; Perished with each,—then mourned for all! A man was starving in Capri; He moved his eyes and looked at me; I felt his gaze, I heard his moan, And knew his hunger as my own. I saw at sea a great fog bank Between two ships that struck and sank; A thousand screams the heavens smote; And every scream tore through my throat. No hurt I did not feel, no death That was not mine; mine each last breath That, crying, met an answering cry From the compassion that was I. All suffering mine, and mine its rod; Mine, pity like the pity of God. Ah, awful weight! Infinity Pressed down upon the finite Me! My anguished spirit, like a bird, Beating against my lips I heard; Yet lay the weight so close about There was no room for it without. And so beneath the weight lay I And suffered death, but could not die. Long had I lain thus, craving death, When quietly the earth beneath Gave way, and inch by inch, so great At last had grown the crushing weight, Into the earth I sank till I Full six feet under ground did lie, And sank no more,—there is no weight Can follow here, however great. From off my breast I felt it roll, And as it went my tortured soul Burst forth and fled in such a gust That all about me swirled the dust. Deep in the earth I rested now; Cool is its hand upon the brow And soft its breast beneath the head Of one who is so gladly dead. And all at once, and over all The pitying rain began to fall; I lay and heard each pattering hoof Upon my lowly, thatched roof, And seemed to love the sound far more Than ever I had done before. For rain it hath a friendly sound To one who's six feet underground; And scarce the friendly voice or face: A grave is such a quiet place. The rain, I said, is kind to come And speak to me in my new home. I would I were alive again To kiss the fingers of the rain, To drink into my eyes the shine Of every slanting silver line, To catch the freshened, fragrant breeze From drenched and dripping apple-trees. For soon the shower will be done, And then the broad face of the sun Will laugh above the rain-soaked earth Until the world with answering mirth Shakes joyously, and each round drop Rolls, twinkling, from its grass-blade top. How can I bear it; buried here, While overhead the sky grows clear And blue again after the storm? O, multi-colored, multiform, Beloved beauty over me, That I shall never, never see Again! Spring-silver, autumn-gold, That I shall never more behold! Sleeping your myriad magics through, Close-sepulchred away from you! O God, I cried, give me new birth, And put me back upon the earth! Upset each cloud's gigantic gourd And let the heavy rain, down-poured In one big torrent, set me free, Washing my grave away from me! I ceased; and through the breathless hush That answered me, the far-off rush Of herald wings came whispering Like music down the vibrant string Of my ascending prayer, and—crash! Before the wild wind's whistling lash The startled storm-clouds reared on high And plunged in terror down the sky, And the big rain in one black wave Fell from the sky and struck my grave. I know not how such things can be; I only know there came to me A fragrance such as never clings To aught save happy living things; A sound as of some joyous elf Singing sweet songs to please himself, And, through and over everything, A sense of glad awakening. The grass, a-tiptoe at my ear, Whispering to me I could hear; I felt the rain's cool finger-tips Brushed tenderly across my lips, Laid gently on my sealed sight, And all at once the heavy night Fell from my eyes and I could see,— A drenched and dripping apple-tree, A last long line of silver rain, A sky grown clear and blue again. And as I looked a quickening gust Of wind blew up to me and thrust Into my face a miracle Of orchard-breath, and with the smell,— I know not how such things can be!— I breathed my soul back into me. Ah! Up then from the ground sprang I And hailed the earth with such a cry As is not heard save from a man Who has been dead, and lives again. About the trees my arms I wound; Like one gone mad I hugged the ground; I raised my quivering arms on high; I laughed and laughed into the sky, Till at my throat a strangling sob Caught fiercely, and a great heart-throb Sent instant tears into my eyes; O God, I cried, no dark disguise Can e'er hereafter hide from me Thy radiant identity! Thou canst not move across the grass But my quick eyes will see Thee pass, Nor speak, however silently, But my hushed voice will answer Thee. I know the path that tells Thy way Through the cool eve of every day; God, I can push the grass apart And lay my finger on Thy heart! The world stands out on either side No wider than the heart is wide; Above the world is stretched the sky,— No higher than the soul is high. The heart can push the sea and land Farther away on either hand; The soul can split the sky in two, And let the face of God shine through. But East and West will pinch the heart That can not keep them pushed apart; And he whose soul is flat—the sky Will cave in on him by and by.

The man sits in a timelessness with the horse under him in time to a movement of legs and hooves upon a timeless sand. Distance comes in from the foreground present in the picture as time he reads outward from and comes from that beginning. A wind blows in and out and all about the man as the horse ran and runs to come in time. A house is burning in the sand. A man and horse are burning. The wind is burning. They are running to arrive.

1 The reservoir is trying to freeze over with an expanding map shaped like an angel Separated lovers on a coast keep walking toward each other. Low sun reddens their faces without heat They are weary of always moving so seldom touching, but never think to move inland, massive and stable Imagoes hatched on thin ice, it’s their illusion membranes are brighter than occluded flesh of interiors Membranes have the density of an edge, and edges violent as lava 2 All day she walked across the tundra He began to drive away obliquely at exactly her speed, so she altered her angle, aiming above him, as in a current He departed in a zone that solidified at his whim, so she reached for his hand Land cracked with their weight. He seemed to reach toward her, a hand like paper twisted and folded over, only a surface with wan modulations, like a map 3 Then she delicately stepped out toward the edge, tenuous as a leaf as if waiting for a letter but it froze too swiftly before her At dusk his voice broke her concentration She turned, vexed, and saw he had not spoken.

This Earth the king said Looking at the ground; This England. But we drive A Sunday paradise Of parkway, trees flow into trees and the grass Like water by the very asphalt crown And summit of things In the flow of traffic The family cars, in the dim Sound of the living The noise of increase to which we owe What we possess. We cannot reconcile ourselves. No one is reconciled, tho we spring From the ground together— And we saw the seed, The minuscule Sequoia seed In the museum by the tremendous slab Of the tree. And imagined the seed In soil and the growth quickened So that we saw the seed reach out, forcing Earth thru itself into bark, wood, the green Needles of a redwood until the tree Stood in the room without soil— How much of the earth's Crust has lived The seed’s violence! The shock is metaphysical. For the wood weathers. Drift wood And the foot print in the forest grow older. This is not our time, not what we mean, it is a time Passing, the curl at the cutwater, The enormous prow Outside in the weather. In that breeze, The sense of that passage, Is desertion, Betrayal, that we are not innocent Of loneliness as Pierrot, Pierrette chattering Unaware tho we imagine nothing Beyond the streets of the living— A sap in the limbs. Mary, Mary, we turn to the children As they will turn to the children Wanting so much to have created happiness As if a stem to the leaves— —we had camped in scrub, A scrub of the past, the fringes of towns Neither towns nor forest, nothing ours. And Linda five, Maybe six when the mare grazing In the meadow came to her. ‘Horse,’ she said, whispering By the roadside With the cars passing. Little girl welcomed, Learning welcome. The rest is— Whatever—whatever—remote Mechanics, endurance, The piers of the city In the sea. Here are whole buildings Razed, whole blocks Of a city gone Among old streets And the old boroughs, ourselves Among these streets where Petra beat A washpan out her window gathering A crowd like a rescue. Relief, As they said it, The Relief. Petra Decisive suddenly among her children In those crumbling bedrooms, Petra, Petra—. And how imagine it? or imagine Coughlin in the streets, Pelley and the Silver Shirts? The medieval sense seems innocent, the very Ceremony of innocence that was drowned. It was not. But how imagine it Of streets boarded and vacant where no time will hatch Now chairs and walls, Floors, roofs, the joists and beams, The woodwork, window sills In sun in a great weight of brick.