Nest

Cane by cane, hand saws skive

the bamboo grove, expose the nest

woodrats have woven leaf by branch —

their vast home now wrenched, bunged

& listing. Rats small & large scramble

down the inner stalks, infants tumble

— two cling to a startled cutter’s hands —

these young abandoned won’t survive.

Strung like rags from a dozen canes

the battered buckled nest sifts & sways.

Who knows what remains inside —

more young, more dying — the stench

around the ravaged grove takes days

to subside. Rats, for all that, abide.

Obligate Carnivore

What’s an obligate carnivore? she asks, quite

the sensible question & one such a child — never

lets a chance to learn go by — is obliged

to ask, any & all words about science — biology, weather,

& food prep — TV contests every night anticipate

tomorrow’s kitchen experiments in sous vide & al dente.

The child is a sponge though we’d asked for a chordate.

Her headlong drive to soak up the world

implies spicules at least for backbone — calcium carbonate?

This morning’s adventure a guided whirl

through a candidate private school — Mom’s fed up

with seeing her forced into the median mold

where every child must do math — chop chop —

the way they’re told. The child protests! She gets how

to do it elsewise — in her head — not a so-many-step

process, instead an eyes-roll-up picture show

whereby she thinks, explores, & triumphs —

okay, it might be a wrong answer, a few below

or above ideal, still, we watch her galumph

over obstacles, long jump & pole vault oh so high —
ride ‘em cowgirl — eight-year-old queen of defiance.

Inter Alia

How have you discovered this?

By thinking on it continually.

What one does, what Newton did

others do in smaller doses.

What comes when one closely

listens — time, weather, spheres.

What happens in the dark inside.

Outside — refractory bright of day

like a high-spirited horse breaks

down hedge, obstacle, small

minds in sequestered spaces —

quaestiones, breakneck ride

cross uncharted ways, in full

two- & three-dimensional regalia.

Drawn until one's driven inter alia.

Loose Halyard

A relationship is dependence —

you cook, I wash.

The end of a relationship is a knot

untied — the wash not dried

or brought inside.

Though you know (or can learn)

everything you need to stay alive

you can’t remember what's the purpose

of crossing those T’s, dotting those I’s.

Relearning that takes three years, five . . .

easier to do without than figure out how.

Whether the end was fast or slow

recovery is woefully stalled —

steps so small they’re not noticed

until they’re habit.

Doesn’t matter why a relationship ends

if the tie bound forever.

The loose halyard flaps against the mast

day after day, night after night

& it’s somehow not your boat —

you can’t climb on board & cleat it.

Nature Is Your Lover Now

I dream of insects — large bright green

grasshoppers, the woman picks one up

when I thought she might have shied —

bright green insects in my clothes

balanced at the edge of my plate, grass-

& leafhoppers, brighter than ambient.

What if it’s too much light? Dead bugs

& lint balls surround me — extricate

disentangle embrace, what I culled from what

Susan said, my very own battle ground

sunrise over the lake, the slothfulness

of morning impedes me — shoulder of pond

base of tree, an egg at every hand

clang of a metal container, behemoths

bearing loads across a bridge, shelves

laden, artificial universal largesse.

Where are the gaps for what has been taken?

What won’t be replaced? Fill each gap

with sleeping stones waiting for stories.

A lake is a suburban compromise, mirror

of light, humble reflections, now pink

clouds in standing water — green black

purple silver. Nature is your lover now,

Laurel says — once I discovered Nature

& everything else were not all the same

I became the sassiness of mallards

strolling the dock, an egret fishing

familiar, the golden golden green marsh.

After

After a year a different book begins to write

about you, grief not so much raw as steady.

The hole where you stood broadens to hold

everyone who no longer stands — mother,

husband, lover, friend — false hierarchy

tumbled to sand, hourglass made midden.

Not wanting is not to be desired. Enlightenment

is despair. The girl left behind when the other

is taken lives the dead girl’s life ever after.

Who remembers all the poems you wrote

this year? Your face I remember now belongs

to me. I wear it stumbling into the maw

of every new day, & the next day — every

day I wake to find you gone. This is after.

Dark with Occasional Bird

That’s looking from the inside. Outside

clouds silver with moonlight, a heron

launched by surprise, one or a pair of doves.

Fourth of July means a day set aside

from highway drone & booms from raising

& setting down containers — commercial goods

scarcely needed yet thought to be desired —
in favor of a race, a parade, loud music, roving
lights when otherwise the day would fade

quietly into the next. Then explosions

lasting for half the night. Not only rails,

even the largest birds head for cover

of tall grass, thick dark before the moon

in the small hours once more rises.

Dilapidated Aria

I was on the beach before seven, along

with twenty some other people walking

& swimming & at least half that many

dogs, nearly all the dogs in the water

swimming for sticks or balls or frolicking —

dripping from ears & tails. Not an umbrella

or beach chair in sight, a shallow lagoon

filled with undulating balloons of sand-

colored fish, waves too gentle to knock

down the Yorkie wanting to lick my hand.

After an hour the rising heat stripped me

down to my bathing suit, soon I lay on

my back, washed over by salty surges,

soothed until forgetting, empty, soft.