Crow, she tells me things;
Her being so commonplace
no one else listens.
Crow (3)
Reply
Crow (2)
Crow (1)
Maybe I should have been
Maybe I should have been
a nature poet, talking up
clouds and lakes,
wolves and rabbits,
the coyote, the honeybee, the scorpion.
Maybe I should have spent my time
traveling from desert to climax forest,
traveling from valley to mountainside,
talking forest fires, rolling fog,
the endless waves that munch seaside cliffs,
the fantastical desert arches
that occupy our cross section of time,
snails, beetles, microbes, grizzly bears,
and how everything fails and is reborn.
Maybe I’ll let go of my newspaper
this time, maybe
I’ll move to the suburbs and write about
a drowned man, maybe
I’ll go to work for a bank
and write about a drowned man,
maybe after writing about the sea
all my life, it will be a happy ending
to load my pockets with stones
and wade to meet the rising tide.
Maybe I’ll go to work for an insurance company
and write about ice cream.
Maybe I will yet.
Meanwhile, just to remind me
that it’s not all over,
here comes that blackbird again,
calling to see if I’m ready yet
to do the next thing.
Marvel his birthday away
(Dylan Marlais Thomas, born 27 October 1914)
We summoned Dylan Thomas’s spirit;
He was more than a little bit drunk, we all could hear it.
But we were charmed he had chosen to honor us
And even inebriated, his voice was still quite sonorous.
There’s a rainbow
There’s a rainbow
stretches from here
to someplace else.
Pot of gold
at that end.
Here there’s nothing
but oil refineries
gray weedy streets
a gritty wind
one aching rainbow.
Here the air’s
tainted with light
and one can’t
speak for crying
and the rainbow’s
not going anywhere.
the walk at last
come along come come come
that is fine
no no need for that and no time
for the need to account for the world is a pressing need
for instance that squirrel
must be put into her proper slot SHARP! SHARP! SHARP! SHARP!
ah
the wellfed mastiff was
here
at this
shrub
since the rain stopped
well well we will see about that
now
all done
come along shall we here is a street for us to walk along I’ll show you the way
this way
this way
this
this way
this
a moment
I’m sure there’s something
here
all right
let us keep on
come along?
there that’s fine
Concert
nothing was
as that
one note
so lonely
long before
the band
(as unexpectedly
as you
always knew
it would)
came on
just like
the river
smooth and
movelessly flowing.
Promenade
Oh for the remembered clop, clop-clop
of the hard shoes fresh from the shop,
the parade of youth learning to be old that we thought would never stop.
Alas I grew bored and thinking life was long
I went away by myself for a while whistling a careless tune.
By the time I thought to return everyone had gone.
Oh how I miss the clop-clop, clop
that the young people made as they walked!
Now it occurs to me
Now it occurs to me that some day
our son who is about to be born
will wear this knit cap
that was given to me
quite some time ago
by someone I was in love with
quite some time ago
and I’ve never told you this.
There’s keeping and then again
there’s keeping it to oneself
but sometimes I think about her
and what it was like to be in love then
and how it was different
from what it’s like to be in love now
and that some day our son
who is about to be born
will wear this knit cap
and he will not know a thing
and you will not know a thing
and she will not know a thing
about it, the way the yarn
follows the yarn.
Won’t that be something?
Bag of Anything 