Poetry

With quiet mind I wonder at the art / that makes, from quiet, words that we can say.

And he had spoken my name, said I want to go with you— / it was then I remembered I was using his old flannel jacket // for a pillow on my unmade bed, lofted as it was / in a high red cedar. . . .

That’s alive, that’s alive, / that’s alive, the neighbor calls // to his son, following the creek bed.

Only when you are a robber baron / who busts unions, makes millions. . .

This is the creature there has never been. / This is the dagger you will never wield / beyond this world. Wild yourself again—

not inherit it from an old orchard, someone else’s labor, / not buy it at the supermarket from a pyramid constructed of bodies. / Your sweat must enter the soil. . . .

Calf’s flesh. / White. / About 28 days. / Mercury. / Yes. / In a wet place, swamps. / In the Spring. / Weeds. / Stormy weather.

What strange light filters through the sex / of a chestnut tree, leaves and catkins / blooming and softly falling. . . .