1630 Nature poems

All those years—almost a hundred— the farm had hard water. Hard orange. Buckets lined in orange. Sink and tub and toilet, too, once they got running water. And now, in less than a lifetime, just by changing the well’s location, in the same yard, mind you, the water’s soft, clear, delicious to drink. All those years to shake your head over. Look how sweet life has become; you can see it in the couple who live here, their calmness as they sit at their table, the beauty as they offer you new water to drink.

I That case-hardened cop. A bull moose in a boghole brought him to a stop. II From his grassy knoll he has you in his crosshairs, the accomplice mole. III The sword once a share. This forest a fresh-faced farm. This stone once a stair. IV The birch crooks her arm, as if somewhat more inclined to welcome the swarm. V He has, you will find, two modes only, the chipmunk: fast-forward; rewind. VI The smell, like a skunk, of coffee about to perk. Thelonius Monk. VII They're the poker work of some sort of woodpecker, these holes in the bark. VIII My new fact checker claims that pilus means "pestle." My old fact checker. IX Those Rose and Thistle. Where the hummingbird drops in to wet his whistle. X Behind the wood bin a garter snake snaps itself, showing us some skin. XI Like most bits of delf, the turtle's seen its best on one's neighbor's shelf. XII Riding two abreast on their stripped-down, souped-up bikes, bears in leather vests. XIII The eye-shaded shrike. BIRD BODIES BURIED IN BOG'S a headline he'll spike. XIV Steady, like a log riding a sawmill's spillway, the steady coydog. XV The cornet he plays was Bolden's, then Beiderbecke's, this lonesome blue jay. XVI Some fresh auto wreck. Slumped over a horn. Sump pool. The frog's neck-braced neck. XVII Brillo pads? Steel wool? The regurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgitations, what, of a long-eared owl? XVIII The jet with the jot. The drive-in screen with the sky. The blood with the blot. XIX How all seems to vie, not just my sleeping laptop with the first firefly.

Seen on a Night in November How frail Above the bulk Of crashing water hangs, Autumnal, evanescent, wan, The moon.

She minces squid and a marinated scallion, Mixes rice with shrimp and olive paste. . . . Hope for the English meal, though half Italian With her jet black hair and her elastic waist. Unlike the other television cooks, She brings to life a lobster that was dead With common spices, her exotic looks, And recipes she dreamed about in bed.

It's all right Unless you're either lonely or under attack. That strange effortful Repositioning of yourself. Laundry, shopping, Hours, the telephone—unless misinformed— Only ever ringing for you, if it ever does. The night—yours to decide, Among drink, or books, or lying there. On your back, or curled up. An embarrassment of poverty.

“If God is Art, then what do we make of Jasper Johns?” One never knows what sort of question a patient will pose, or how exactly one should answer. Outside the window, snow on snow began to answer the ground below with nothing more than foolish questions. We were no different. I asked again: “Professor, have we eased the pain?” Eventually, he’d answer me with: “Tell me, young man, whom do you love?” “E," I’d say, “None of the Above," and laugh for lack of something more to add. For days he had played that game, and day after day I avoided your name by instinct. I never told him how we often wear each other’s clothes— we aren’t what many presuppose. Call it an act of omission, my love. Tonight, while walking to the car, I said your name to the evening star, clearly pronouncing the syllables to see your name dissipate in the air, evaporate. Only the night air carries your words up to the dead (the ancients wrote): I watched them rise, become remote.

night and open as a child never feared an inch of her face it was a stance and succulence even in sleep had the graves a nightingale asked so far

I woke to more rain, and felt in the dark for how wet the sill was, then rolled back to my radio, and a midnight preacher in my earphone teaching about sin. I learned that punishment would come like lightning that surprises an innocent shore. Thunder would follow me all my days, stern reminder and sharp rebuke. The long, sleek, and pointed call that rose, as if in response, out of the estuary of night and storm, said it knew well what the given world gave, and wanted more.

Late in the cold night wakened, and heard wind, And lay with eyes closed and silent, knowing These words how bodiless they are, this darkness Empty under my roof and the panes rattling Roughed by wind. And so lay and imagined Somewhere far off black seas heavy-shouldered Plunging on sand and the ebb off-streaming and Thunder forever. So lying bethought me, friend, What traffic ghouls have, or this be legend, In low inland hollows of the earth, under Shade of moon, the night moaning, and bitter frost; And feared the riches of my bones, long given Into this earth, should tumble to their hands. No girl or ghost beside me, and I lonely, Remembering gardens, lilac scent, or twilight Descending late in summer on that town, I lay and found my years departed from me, And feared the cold bed and the wind, absurdly Alone with silence and the trick of tears.

The night never wants to end, to give itself over to light. So it traps itself in things: obsidian, crows. Even on summer solstice, the day of light’s great triumph, where fields of sunflowers guzzle in the sun— we break open the watermelon and spit out black seeds, bits of night glistening on the grass.