Most read ▸
Dave Bonta
I am old hat
the lines meet
in my quaint nest
look at me go to sandwich
this ear with that
where am I with my bag of sand
like a bad condition
with this little nest to press rest
every body a nothing that I am taking
home and home and home
I watched an indigo bunting on
the topmost branch silhouetted
against the sky: blue
& still more blue. If I told you
all I could see was the yellow of
his bill, would you believe me?
In the bare crown of the elm tree
where a porcupine gnawed all winter,
a hummingbird perches with his back
to an indigo bunting. How odd to see him
sit so still so long, I think, though
his head pivots back & forth the whole
time. The bunting calls & calls.
Could this battered tree with
its foliage like a crazy woman’s skirt
hide two nests? A crow flies sideways,
the garden gives me nothing
I am glad
after love or great disorder
in an unknown nest
I could be quiet
the wren can nest
like a head full of evil
now saying nothing
to save his place
A chickadee in the garden
fills its beak with thistle down
and flies off to its nest.
I take a closer look:
that’s no down, but my own white hair
from last month’s haircut.
A spring azure butterfly
lands on the blue gravel road
and disappears.
The phoebes across the road
carry beakfuls of mud
into their nest.
Planting onions,
my thumb- and fingernails harvest
black crescents.
This summer while I’m gone,
the walking onions will re-plant themselves,
head-down in the dirt.
Just after your departure,
I find half a hummingbird nest
and an old broken crock.
The sun comes out.
A fly circles the lip
of a purple crocus.
The kestrel hunting meadow voles
keeps returning
to the same electric line.
Each time I go out,
I interrupt something: a hawk’s meal,
a groundhog’s courtship.
I make an offering
of my gray hair—a fine
nesting material—
toss the cuttings out
onto the snow. The warm wind
blows them right back.
in the old field I walk
between turnstiles
wind comes alone
with no good message
but one toke and I see
my dark nest
give the whole day
new fur
Birds fly south across the barnyard:
an omen. pig thinks & wishes
he had a shotgun. Birds
flying in all directions
and everywhere. Ugh, says Pig--
so many ladders, black cats, strange smells, there
are omens and dreams . black wings and tusks
O when
and will the birds come down.
they will
from everywhere. and do
build a nest in the dead pig/s nostrils.
winter takes a break everybody has the london flu
takes it easy so why not him our backyard is an
icebox turned on defrost. through all pores drips
melts runs how vulgar can you get. as snow dis-
appears old garbage reappears and i read
" a nest is a bird's house "
i've known this for a long time people have told
me for a long time it is such an old story in
fact i hesitate to repeat it. nests are places of
intimacy designated by an attraction. there does
not exist an intimacy that is repellent. its being
is well being. and memory is a wardrobe with the
presence of lavender the history of the seasons
enters. what dreams are reserved for us if we re-
call the land of tranquility. memories come crowd-