Red Bird: Poems (4 page)

Not This, Not That

Nor anything,
not the eastern wind whose other name
    is rain,
nor the burning heats of the dunes
    at the crown of summer,
nor the ticks, that new, ferocious populace,

not the President who loves blood,
nor the governmental agencies that love money,

will alter

my love for you, my friends and my beloved,
or for you, oh ghosts of Emerson and Whitman,

or for you, oh blue sky of a summer morning,
that makes me roll in a barrel of gratitude
    down hills,

or for you, oldest of friends: hope;
or for you, newest of friends: faith;

or for you, silliest and dearest of surprises, my
own life.

Iraq

I want to sing a song
    for a body I saw
        crumpled
            and without a name

but clearly someone young
    who had not yet lived his life
        and never would.
            How shall I do this?

What kind of song
    would serve such a purpose?
        This poem may never end,
            for what answer does it have

for anyone
    in this distant,
        comfortable country,
            simply looking on?

Clearly
    he had a weapon in his hands.
        I think
            he could have been no more than twenty.

I think, whoever he was,
    of whatever country,
        he might have been my brother,
            were the world different.

I think
    he would not have been lying there
        were the world different.
            I think

if I had known him,
    on his birthday,
        I would have made for him
            a great celebration.

In the Pasture

On the first day of snow, when the white curtain of winter
    began to stream down,
the house where I lived grew distant
    and at first it seemed imperative to hurry home.
But later, not much later, I began to see
    that soft snowbound house as I would always remember it,
and I would linger a long time in the pasture,
    turning in circles, staring
at all the crisp, exciting, snow-filled roads
    that led away.

Both Worlds

Forever busy, it seems,
    with words,
        finally
            I put the pen down

and crumple
    most of the sheets
        and leave one or two,
            sometimes a few,

for the next morning.
    Day after day—
        year after year—
            it has gone on this way,

I rise from the chair,
    I put on my jacket
        and leave the house
            for that other world—

the first one,
    the holy one—
        where the trees say
            nothing the toad says

nothing the dirt
    says nothing and yet
        what has always happened
            keeps happening:

the trees flourish,
    the toad leaps,
        and out of the silent dirt
            the blood-red roses rise.

We Should Be Well Prepared

The way the plovers cry goodbye.
The way the dead fox keeps on looking down the hill
    with open eye.
The way the leaves fall, and then there’s the long wait.
The way someone says: we must never meet again.
The way mold spots the cake,
the way sourness overtakes the cream.
The way the river water rushes by, never to return.
The way the days go by, never to return.
The way somebody comes back, but only in a dream.

Desire

So long as I am hanging on
I want to be young and noble.
I want to be bold.

So said the great buck, named Swirler,
as he stepped like a king past me
the week before he was arrow-killed.

And so said the wren in the bush
after another hard year
of love, of nest-life, of singing.

And so say I
every morning, just before sunrise,
wading the edge of the dark ocean.

I Ask Percy How I Should Live My Life (Ten)

Love, love, love, says Percy.
And run as fast as you can
along the shining beach, or the rubble, or the dust.

Then, go to sleep.
Give up your body heat, your beating heart.
Then, trust.

Swimming, One Day in August

It is time now, I said,
for the deepening and quieting of the spirit
among the flux of happenings.

Something had pestered me so much
I thought my heart would break.
I mean, the mechanical part.

I went down in the afternoon
to the sea
which held me, until I grew easy.

About tomorrow, who knows anything.
Except that it will be time, again,
for the deepening and quieting of the spirit.

Mornings at Blackwater

For years, every morning, I drank
from Blackwater Pond.
It was flavored with oak leaves and also, no doubt,
the feet of ducks.

And always it assuaged me
from the dry bowl of the very far past.

What I want to say is
that the past is the past,
and the present is what your life is,
and you are capable
of choosing what that will be,
darling citizen.

So come to the pond,
or the river of your imagination,
or the harbor of your longing,

and put your lips to the world.
And live
your life.

Who Said This?

Something whispered something
that was not even a word.
It was more like a silence
that was understandable.
I was standing
at the edge of the pond.
Nothing living, what we call living,
was in sight.
And yet, the voice entered me,
my body-life,
with so much happiness.
And there was nothing there
but the water, the sky, the grass.

This Day, and Probably Tomorrow Also

Full of thought, regret, hope dashed or not dashed yet,
full of memory, pride, and more than enough
of spilled, personal grief,

I begin another page, another poem.

So many notions fill the day! I give them
gowns of words, sometimes I give them
little shoes that rhyme.

What an elite life!

While somewhere someone is kissing a face that is crying.
While somewhere women are walking out, at two in the morning—
    many miles to find water.
While somewhere a bomb is getting ready to explode.

Of Goodness

How good
that the clouds travel, as they do,
like the long dresses of the angels
of our imagination,

or gather in storm masses, then break
with their gifts of replenishment,
and how good
that the trees shelter the patient birds

in their thick leaves,
and how good that in the field
the next morning
red bird frolics again, his throat full of song,

and how good
that the dark ponds, refreshed,
are holding the white cups of the lilies
so that each is an eye that can look upward,

and how good that the little blue-winged teal
comes paddling among them, as cheerful as ever,

and so on, and so on.

Meadowlark Sings and I Greet Him in Return

Meadowlark, when you sing it’s as if
you lay your yellow breast upon mine and say
hello, hello, and are we not
of one family, in our delight of life?
You sing, I listen.
Both are necessary
if the world is to continue going around
night-heavy then light-laden, though not
everyone knows this or at least
not yet,

or, perhaps, has forgotten it
in the torn fields,

in the terrible debris of progress.

When I Cried for Help

Where are you, Angel of Mercy?
Outside in the dusk, among the flowers?
Leaning against the window or the door?
Or waiting, half asleep, in the spare room?

I’m here, said the Angel of Mercy.
I’m everywhere—in the garden, in the house,
and everywhere else on earth—so much
asking, so much to do. Hurry! I need you.

In the Evening, in the Pinewoods

Who knows the sorrows of the heart?
God, of course, and the private self.
But who else? Anyone or anything else?
Not the trees, in their windy independence.
Nor the roving clouds, nor, even, the dearest of friends.

Yet maybe the thrush, who sings
by himself, at the edge of the green woods,
to each of us
out of his mortal body, his own feathered limits,
of every estrangement, exile, rejection—their
   death-dealing weight.

And then, so sweetly, of every goodness also to be remembered.

Love Sorrow

Love sorrow. She is yours now, and you must
take care of what has been
given. Brush her hair, help her
into her little coat, hold her hand,
especially when crossing a street. For, think,

what if you should lose her? Then you would be
sorrow yourself; her drawn face, her sleeplessness
would be yours. Take care, touch
her forehead that she feel herself not so

utterly alone. And smile, that she does not
altogether forget the world before the lesson.
Have patience in abundance. And do not
ever lie or ever leave her even for a moment

by herself, which is to say, possibly, again,
abandoned. She is strange, mute, difficult,
sometimes unmanageable but, remember, she is a child.
And amazing things can happen. And you may see,

as the two of you go
walking together in the morning light, how
little by little she relaxes; she looks about her;
she begins to grow.