we feed the animals
great grey-white screaming
gulls one sitting on a rock
for hours waiting
he gets fed first
quick chirping chipmunks with sharp
stripes who come up
to our chairs rabbits - somewhere -
shy and snuffling
green-necked geese over the bay
knowing it could make them
too trustful of hunters
for ourselves
our pets we say
liking them to turn to us
to feel acknowledged needed share
Playing Scrabble with
their backs to the window,
a red-tailed hawk.
Rattling around in her potting shed once
she came across packets five years old;
had not heart to toss the things away.
Popping the lid from an empty parsley shaker,
she tipped the packets’ contents in and stirred.
Ten flats she sowed at random with this mix,
come March, that first year; a month earlier
thereafter, as springs grew warmer. Bits of green
appeared, some here, more there. She'd prick out any
that went to a second pair of leaves, and give them
each its own square pot. What might they be?
Some Red Russian, curly or Lacinato
kale, some radishes, turnips, beets. Six kinds
of lettuce, collards, cabbage -- Dutch or red --
some spinach, also chard. Carrots, kohlrabi
Along the new trail, built by no one I knew,
acorns had fallen by thousands, more than enough
to leave creatures dazed by too much fortune.
Conkers have tumbled among them, each
experimentally chipped and then rejected
by some set of tiny teeth. Hazel nuts
were better, it seems. Should an adder pass en route
to denning, amid this rich mast, amid
this late fall of goldened leaves of ash
and beech, I might merely step aside,
unalarmed as any fattened squirrel.
Across the pasture, I remember, past
the partly shaded ferns, cowslips, bluebells,
buttercups of spring and summer, where
falling water, catkin-patterned, drowned out
the cygnet's cry in an otter's teeth (witnessed
The bear sleeps in the cellar hole, where pine needles
heap over the granite doorstep. And the well brims
with acorns and the broken leaves of the oak tree
which has grown where the anvil rusted in the forge.
When my eyes close, I can see another summer:
a bark of rust grows on the trees of the gas pumps,
and the EAT signs gather like leaves in the shallow
cellars of diners, and a wildcat waits for deer
on the roof of a car. Blacktop buckled by frost
starts goldenrod from the highway. Fat honey bees
meander among raspberries, where a quarrel
of vines crawls into the spilled body of a plane.
I become wary
of the huckleberries
inveigling ice down
my neck, no matter
how I turn.
Trees are shy brides.
During spring
they wear their clothing
in the dawn of the day
before we awake.
During autumn
they take off their green dresses
late at night
while we are still asleep.
Between granite and sky occurs
the culture of a barn—
a parliament of odors,
treaties of seed.
Every one of those barn-swallows
transports a secret word
under its wing until at dusk
a statement gathers—
a large calling
with accents of loam. Day
utters this immense phrase
to night. The message
concerns entirety.
Thistledown woven
spider-net
abandoned nest
a cup
upturned
under the wrong tree
light as breath
hedge-fallen
gloveback
nature retrieves
her mess of twigs
grasses
meticulously
bit-by-bit
In wind
In liquid air.
Is there anything new under the sun?
Certainly there is.
See how a bird flies, how flowers smile !
"Let day pass,
"Let night break," —
So the frogs sing morning and eve.
God's pity on poor kings,
They know no gentle rest;
The North and South cry out,
Cries come from East and West--
"Come, open this new Dock,
Building, Bazaar or Fair."
Lord, what a wretched life
Such men must bear.
They're followed, watched and spied,
No liberty they know;
Some eye will watch them still,
No matter where they go.
When in green lanes I muse,
Alone, and hear birds sing,
God's pity then, say I,
On some poor king.