Streaming
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happenstance provision, easy prey for
prowling bird, turtle, fish, crawdad, frog.
The beauty of it all
in sunlightened wing shining, falling forward and
back, up and down. Frenzy fantastic
color gentle, feathered wing too delicate to touch
without removing glide barb. Metamorphosed
just for this day
a metaphor, relational,
for all that is good and will be.
Butterfly girl wraps her hair into braided wing
flaps for future. Turns herself
into the softest touch, lifting and rising
everything around her, all that is good—
this is good—
something they do so much
better than the Human Beings
in natural accordance with traditional way
of the butterfly creation racing,
occurring in this way, for her and those following her.
Kama, kamama. Catch her
in the morning and
again at night, at midday she just floats by breezing.
EDDY LINES
for JTS
In transgressions
migrating song to stone,
au courant your flint sparks
question each turn
waving over azimuth.
Brother, allow me to backpaddle, offer
bearing, boil, berry break—brace—
least we broach C-2.
In the chine,
a quail covey
awaits release,
as passenger pigeon
and Carolina parakeet
long over yaw
from foreigner squall—
Sternpaddler, you
call for reason
when sometimes
water just is and
the path we bear upon it
simply running
rock garden, reading water,
quartering or purchasing
avoiding pitch, pivot, portage
for the freedom here.
Beyond the lob tree
a mouth opens.
We both go there
one after another.
First you, me.
Then me, you.
Our dugouts surely
best what lapstrake we make
sur le voyage.
Smoker ahead,
this yoke may come handy
despite shuttle duty.
One day
Kevlar may be essential
to offset keening.
For now, it’s the cut of water,
the lean and what emboldens
each of us, singularly,
in the gradient.
I’ll feather, you ferry,
until eddy lines
cross apart
and yet together
through this art—
dead reckoning.
Perhaps, one day,
mapping courses
for one another, lest
we forgive odds,
make mutual course,
loose branches so
some might follow
more easily.
WAITING FOR LIGHT
for Ted
Click click click on maple plank—
says she’s seen some sense of light—
this rise, we’ll move like prairie wolves toward
whatever’s open, whatever receives poor
attempts at living, mutt and me, we’ll be
quicker than the clicker she should be
trained with, now nestled in pockets,
in coats not come in time, not
ready for cold. Still a sense of here
is where we wring fear from fellows
born to page, pealing peel now pulp,
once slash-sewn fodder, click-tickling ivories
atop some far forgotten upright,
across a keyboard floor we move to.
Is it the last of us? What leads us
past the last window where
each of us finds light, dust? Whether it’s coal
on cars, the 4:11, or voices sometimes pressed
to make the curve, make the State shine.
Shine on they say, and in this near light
embodying morning.
Coal heads east on the 4:11
sounding through sleepy streets
rumbling brick pavement, glass panes.
Time for tea, or coffee,
maybe Sumatran, or rooibos,
something imported, stamped.
Tornado-like whirring winds up, down rails,
velocity unknown, little matter,
inside this wood-floored, plaster-walled room.
Where the dog and I lie
waiting for sunrise,
waiting for light.
PLATTE MARES
Sandhill cranes rise into spiraled kettles, their
mares purring chortling kettling
vortex siege
sedge herd.
Vortexing themselves into dawn, dusk.
Call & response.
Call & response. Call & response.
Call & response.
Tens of thousands looping high over mustang running buffalo sod.
Mares above, below.
Last year’s colts breaking out into adolescent gangs, in
both worlds, adolescent gangs, colt crane cohorts,
bachelor flock
over colt mustangs turning.
The mares above turning yaw.
My filly snapping teeth on cool air.
Her lead mare calling, she neighs quick, call & response.
Sandhills display, spread wings, preen, arch, calling, fluff out
toward intruders cranes, coyotes.
Mustangs pummel earth.
All mares facing off the canine bite.
Territory three to two-fifty acres—danced.
Nares, mandible,
unison call, antiphonal territorial call, mated postures vocalized.
Over covert lining flight feathers, primaries along the wing hand, propulse
forward, secondaries, forearm inside primaries, soar and stop, tertials
of upper arm, bustling close to the body—
estrous cycle cloaca oviduct—
Preparing for two egg clutch,
egg tooth tubercle horn. Precocial pipping breath,
hock tarsus— The ground mares fetlock proofed as well, cradling foal.
Kettling, converging.
It is the season.
TED’S CRANES
for Kooser
Parachute glide down to Platte cool.
Must be a half million of ’em
landed last night. All I can see
is the poem Ted wrote when hard
freeze paralyzed them there, ice
hardened round their long legs
fastened death impending ’til shots
took life and fire carcasses. Here,
evening was gentle this time. Incoming
let down into flow with a bit of morrow
probable.
PHILOSOPHY
Last night,
I dreamed a small bird migratory rush
into a brushline nearby.
One of indiscriminate color, broke cover,
flew fast past the siege, directly into my open hand.
The bird stayed with me throughout my dreaming,
never left my palm
though it changed itself several times within my light clutch.
Was it bright?
It was bright.
SUMMER FRUIT
Plums hanging low.
Summer rain in reggae balm
below heat, here in
banana cherry slide—just right.
Just right.
Listen she’s telling now:
Innocent—plum.
Succulent—plum.
Resonant—plum!
like yo-yo rum
like yo-yo rum
like yo-yo rum,
plum over, round,
into palm—plum.
Make it raspy—plum!
Firm flesh gives way
for finger, thumb
touch teasing easing plum juice
from
tantalizing fruit
spills
plum song
plum love
plum sweet touch
to whoever takes some
while
summer has its way with us
—’tis true.
Both of us
singing raspy plum juice
black cherry throat song
shadowed
in dark,
where duendes play
easy
lift light from
creases
opening flutter.
Is summer a box of light?
Box of fruit, opening?
Light streaming in all directions
fanning heat in rays spread,
sunshine through sheltering shade,
shadow dark embracing
offering light in each give, each
bend, every pressing hold
sheltering in radiance, resplendent.
Look here, sunshine in rain—brilliance—
like languages held in secret,
traditional tongues kept present,
nurtured, sheltered, in shade/sun,
light/dark, reed/oboe.
Her story, song—love
cradled in every
bit of wild planted sweet,
how she grew you, fills you now.
I remember the taste—love
remember him bringing promises, wine
playing his reed, oboe on cotton sheet
spread in summer swelter.
Island mountain sky,
box of light/shade
plum love
plum sweet touch
take some—
II
BREAKING COVER
for my sons
HEROES
just go where they’re made to
when everything else goes awry.
Eagle Tail in stilled time
the body lifting surface
where churning falls gave
walleye, trout, coolness
for multitudes, generations,
now quiver his resolute effort to
something larger than humanness.
Was it?
Or, was it the core of humanness?
Was it melody? Rhythmic water
moving serpentine as it had always
grasped? Carrying, then delivering
the boy back to surface.
In turn taking in
the child’s sister with brave stranger to
people the underneath where
we seldom belong.
Are they now nearer
the center we stepped from?
Nearer where we all lived,
yet gone? In this world we lose
the ones who give the most.
The fruit of toil, its mission.
More than we muster.
Each time the water
surges and crashes, I feel his words,
I got him. Hold on to me. I won’t let go.
PANDO/PANDO
The Trembling Giant Aspen / Bolivian massacre site
Trembling giant
bulging under siege
Pando
/Pando
waving I spread
banned from streets
perpendicular to leaf blade
Pando/
Pando
havoc, natural gas
petiole flattened
opposition pushing right autonomy
rush, lift, breaking cover, tremble
on the fourth day of
yellow-white-grayish-yellow
Pando/Pando
hunger strike, assailants
lobbed a green grenade
forced to knees shirtless
peasantry
tree
Pando
/Pando
Pando/
Pando
aspen man spreads uprising
flowering, flower,
spreading root sprout
Pando
ambush
where Morales has stayed
biomass clone cross giant uprising
deeply rooted Indigenous growth
prevent Bolivia from splintering apart
Pando/Pando
visiting Santa Cruz
one hundred acres
dynamite blasts
fourteen million pounds
public humiliation
Pando/Pando
rooted eighty thousand years
fifty Indigenous mayors rooted
thirty Andeans killed this week
paralyzed borders
Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay
Pando/Pando
clonal colony
colonial massacre
singular genetic individual
Morales, an Aymara Indian,
Pando/Pando
organized opposition, university
student conservatives, forced terrified
Indigenous people, to their knees
forced refugee people to
apologize for coming to Sucre
forced chanted insults to their hero Evo
then conservatives set fire
to blue, black, white Aymara flag
seized hand-woven Aymara ponchos
Aymara people
Pando/Pando
Pando/Pando
rhizome, basal shoot
shot, seven dead
shooting—genet/ramet
peasant farmers
organism overtaking
not supported by current evidence
Fishlake quaking
Amazon
Pando
aspen life in largest
singular germination
Pando/Pando
Pando/Pando
Pando/Pando
Pando/Pando
Pando/Pando
Pando/Pando
Pando/Pando
SWARMING
Swarming upward
hosts thicken air as hornets
with whirling winds
their weapons wielded wildly
back home blackbirds whirl
in skies grayed
from icy winter chill, frost,
a single sparrow cowers against
bush base huddling
wind bristles with his war
skies hustle
fields, valleys, meadows moan
mountains reel
all creatures
cater to whims of man
in chaotic frenzy for battle
when peace is ever present
in just one thoughtful breath
breathe, breathe deep
HIBAKUSHA
Each breath depends upon life
easing lungs: child & elder.
Every inkling, cause for peace.
Each moment offering time,
simple presence with still hands
streaming over darkened light.
Sharing inhale, exhale, peace—
Calling, come to this.
STEEL
Boerum Hill, Little Caughnawaga
where the glamour boys of structural steel sleep
Skyline depended on them one hundred
twenty years, six generations. Mohawk
crews fashioned the city, iron dressed
and floated her into ether.
After the fall,
everyone, clear to Zuni, put on call, smoke-
jumpers, seventy, eighty percent Native
crews, lived it, in the heat: colonization,
construction, that morning, this day,
every beam in balance despite hor
ror
in the world.
STORY
So my sister,
works down near Water,
got off her printing shift ’bout
time things all came down.
All the hustle, she thought
a bus wreck. Kept going,
ahead, out of their way, eyes
down, way to make it in the city, right?
By the time she got a call out
to me, they were looking for her
from work, wondering if she’d
made it off the subway before
the whole thing buckled.
Few days on, she was wiping
windowsill dust, when light
dawned on her, was ash, remains
cremains, probably. Huddled there
after flying out of towers, now blown.
SEARCHING GROUND
Every bit of them apart,
like my sister’s cat when