Classic Poem

The little birds are honing their beaks on the chopping block stump.
The clouds have gathered for their convention
from deep out in the dark Pacific.
They clear their throats and speak out.
Everything stills and listens,
even the little birds
With their sharp beaks and sharp claws,
clinging inside the tamaracks
Until the storm passes and the cloud bodies adjourn.

That's when the big birds come,
with their sweeping wings and dangling legs.
Their eyes ajar, and the lightning sparks from their keening claws.
The poppies along the near hill glisten like small fires,
Pink and orange and damp red.
Behind the glass window, we hear the swoosh of the giant wings,
And listen hard for the next pass,
but they don't come back.

It's not such a poverty, we think,
to live in a metaphysical world.
Thus we become poor, and spurn the riches of the earth.
Such nonsense.
The crow flies with his beak open,
emitting a raucous cry.
The yearling horses stand in the field,
up to their knees in the new grass.
This is the first world we live in, there is no second.


The mind's the affliction,
asleep for a hundred years,
Nothing to wake it but memory,
The deep blank of memory,
river and hills, the morning sun,
Simple things,
the body moving, not much, but moving.











From Poetry Northwest, Fall 2006/Winter 2007. Copyright University of Washington. Used with Permission.