Pastoral 2
Not the lightning strike, nor the grackle
who fell from the tree, nor me, watching from the porch—
It’s the other me being acted on: the way ice
converts to gas because of heat.
And I’m thinking,
too, of resolution: that the stones in my hand —
their moss and grime — are more
than quartz, feldspar: their knownness
unsatisfying, and then
tossing them behind me on the path.
+++++++++++
Pastoral 4: an ecology
At a corner snack bar, the girls
serve salesmen who juggle their gadgets.
Outside, workers sneak their smokes, touch up their lips;
the tourists leave without a bite ($4.50 for tea).
Winter’s sunshine skims the building’s edge.
A pigeon digs for crumbs. The streets
are peopled with silk and feathers,
and the reoccurring impetus of gain.
+++++++
Daybreak: August
A train, distant, with a mournful horn
opening the day: overcast but full of birds.
Their industry, and the crickets
and cars whizzing the avenues.
A chair, rooted in grass blades,
my place to depart from dreams. I am
that sparrow on the alley wire. And the sirens —
even at this hour. Even in this calm.
++++++++
Like It or Not
Sirens gust beyond the rooftops.
The activity of vacancy beyond those rooftops,
the murderous sidewalks not far from home.
Deshawn (in the news) said:
“I would change the story …a quiet part of town
where knives and guns fall asleep while we play.”
Baltimore’s poverty weaves itself across the avenues.
Its achievements cross-stitched, plot line
punctuated by small trees
in small sockets. An ecology.
Whether we like it or not, humans
have become the meaning of the earth.
+++++++++++
Pastoral 6
The concrete actual
The actual gunshot
The fashionable restaurant
The operatic unemployment line
The rat and starling : run free.
Look for the original river
Underground. Still. In its culvert
Pooling the harbor, the reservoir. The pipes
animated and quenching.
A faint and cacophonous entanglement.
+++++++
Cornice Roofline
where pigeons study the intersection
of Aisquith and North.
The particular building,
the particular intersection:
bus stop, gasoline,
burgers and ribs : evidence :
two species
at rest, a red light
20 drivers : 20 birds
incomplete in our differences, our likenesses
The tarpaper sun-trap
The asphalt sun trap
A need for,
A terrible need, commonplace
The small minds: pigeon-sized
Oily feathers, opalescent in the January sun
+++++++++
Propped by fat pillows,
the mind’s blue eyes survey the rooftops.
Wires crisscross the alleyway.
A squirrel on the wire running,
Furred claws curled around electric weavings.
It moves between shingles and the trees.
Is it running? Or something more squirrel-like—
Not: “I want that walnut,” but something
squirrel-voiced or voiceless.
A mind can’t know what it is.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
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