Streaming Read online

  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!
/>   Swing 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