Out
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.
Poems on the topic: wind
Poems on the topic “wind” on Poets.by.
Clearing
Trees sway like drunks
in a sudden gust of wind—
the clacking of their branches.
The whole hillside
is in motion around me,
standing here with my head cold
almost gone.
How marvelous it is
just to breathe.
Walking the line
High winds. I press an ear
to the trunk of a ridge-top oak
and hear nothing but wind.
My footprints in the snow
are more than erased;
they’re raised up, scattered like ashes.
The woodpecker must hear any sound
an oak can make.
It taps out a response.
Landfall
that one English word
in Philippine news reports about Guiuan
where Magellan landed in 1521
where the Americans made their first beachhead in World War II
in the swirl of Tagalog I don’t understand
that word keeps floating to the surface
landfall
where floors shook
where roofs blew off
where concrete columns toppled
where wind gusts reached 195 miles per hour
where a 13-foot wall of water swept ashore
landfall
where the eye took a brief calm
sightless look & moved on
where a stone church was flattened
Leaving
A falling leaf
reversed course
& flew.
It sailed up
over the trees
& didn’t stop until
it reached a forest
inside a cloud
in Panama.
You were left
with a double loss:
of the leaf it wasn’t
& of the bird it was.
On the ground
where the leaf
would’ve settled,
Tree Without Birds
The tree without birds
is like a book without vowels
a mind without focus
a heart without tides.
Its limbs remain desolate
in the thick of summer.
It puts out leaves
but forgets to bloom
& its transactions with fungi
are strictly economic,
never lead to any
tempting truffle.
The wind plays it
like a mechanical instrument.
In bluest January
it doesn’t even remember
Therapy
I have no mouth but
I must scream,
says the wind.
My tongue knows its
own taste: the half-
frozen stream.
You draw me & I’ll
draw you, I tell
my childhood self.
We lean like ladders
against the clouds.
With one listening foot I feel
for the next rung down.
Poem for the New Year
The squirrel says: the trees
in which I have slept
are the color of the sun.
Leafless now and clear
all likely pathways. The tree peers
bleary-eyed through every scar
that used to be a leaf,
she is stiff and cold
and full of old voices.
I rub my face and neck against
her bark: wake up!
My tail trembles.
I am rainwater running
up and down the trunk,
from tree to tree I am wind
leaping, making the treetops sway.
In the weeds
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
Over the Hills
Dear Todd,
I was taking the broom for a slow shuffle
around the dining room when I heard
the fluting of wild swans & rushed out,
scanning the sky till I spotted the long wedge
high above the hollow, heading north.
They were as dark against the sky
as we must be to them against the ground,
pausing in our Sunday labors, mouths open
as the swans pass over the train tracks
& the river, over the interstate & the quarry’s
enormous silent megaphone,
over a cardinal singing in a barberry hedge,
over junker cars & houses sheathed
in fading asphalt shingles,
over old carpets left out in the yard
Early Meadow-Rue
Thalictrum dioicum
Dioicum: separate houses.
Here the male
& there the female.
Clouds rise from the male plant
& dangle yellow weather.
From the female plant,
ten-fingered hands stretch
in all directions.
Without scent or nectar,
what flying thing will be
their go-between?
There’s only the wind.
But this meadow-rue
has abandoned the meadow,
so it must flower early or
Adieu
Let us then, do not lie
Though we lie next to each.
Let us then, do not touch
If our hearts so belie.
Let us then, do not kiss
Bereft of warmth are our lips.
Let not our eyes look at us
Blinds are drawn, the windows dark.
Let us then, do not let love
Fall into a habit like brushing the teeth.
Scatter the past to the rising wind
Like leaves fluttering in the Fall.
Let us then, not pretend to love
No reprimand for not being in love.
Life is a journey not bound on leash,
Let us, my love, now let us leave.
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