Wildness: two poems
seed, feed or become the earth
the only star we know to have cataclysmed pine nuts
into existence—bringing close six songs i can hear
where i’m sitting—lies down quiet this evening,
unlike everyone else. two canada jays in a balsam fir,
uncautious at all. not far from here spruce squats
into sagebrush. in october, the juniper berries heavy.
there is so much to eat no one’s fighting.
the news stays dark as every night.
we barely understand oranges and olives, let alone
war crime. i leave the birds what the birds
do not need, not from me. not yet. in the fall,
every seed has three options. no, four—
i remember one is being forgotten.
dendrochronology of a murder
three crows come to my door every day. i give them peanuts.
they give me everything else—company, questions, conversation,
though it tends to stay one way. i play them buena vista social club,
they play with fire, taunting the towhees behind the rose bush,
stealing sunlight on their backs. the young one is a universe
about to be born, so black i see everything in it, even myself.
perhaps why he’s so easy to talk to. the other two give midnight,
oil slick on asphalt, shimmering blue and iridescent like the darkest
blue thing, a crow, at the beginning of breeding season, at the height
of her body’s wisdom, which knows: approach dancing. bow, spread
your feathers wide, sing. even hideously. let them know, if you are,
you are willing. be a moonless night on a light-scattered planet.
the deeper the blue, the more hasn’t killed you.
