Field Guide to Birds of North America

 

from this week in 2017  (I was 72)

 

Field Guide to Birds of North America

Copyright 1966 in Racine Wisconsin

owned by Francie Austen Yoshinoga

Camden Maine 1974  Sold to me

by Kona Bay Bookstore in Hawaii 2014

and transported to Pleasanton California

It’s pages have a lot of wings

Commonly known as a Golden Press Paperback

with identifications of sky blue breast markings

a belly of variegated blues with touches of red and white

It’s back is unmarked and entirely beige

Judging its compact sturdy structure

I would not doubt the possibility of long life

with further extended flights

I ache to wake break bed to get up and go

 

February 27, 2012  (I was 67)

 

I ache to wake break bed to get up and go

through motions designed to shed recline

out of repose and into some clothes

and I do what I see to be done to do

 

Not to be wallowed in grief or swallowed

by the enormity of the construct perceived

I smoke a token of the talisman plant

to decide which ideas should be ideas in deed

 

Something must be physical and use real muscle

sweater the better the only skill the will

to breathe into mind oxygen sublime

breath breathed by so many breathers before

 

Creation creates its own pace and slow

is measured one measure at a time

and at a tempo that tempts one to dance

Earth and moon to and fro do-si-do

 

lodger

 

February 26, 2006  (I was 61)

 

                  lodger

Resentment lives in the basement

sweats in his sleep next to the water heater

Along the angled shadow of wall and floor

he slinks like a rodent with a naked tail

sits under a dim bulb

His trailing vestige writhing in shadow

Any accomplishment by those he knows

is another by which he’ll never be known

His moustache twitches over smiling lips

baring little teeth clicking audibly

as if he were nibbling a morsel

he’ll never swallow

There must be a verb

 

February 25, 1998  (I was 53)

 

There must be a verb

situated between escapade and escape,

something to allow getting away

with a bit more seriousness of purpose

than frivolous adventure,

some search for perspective

where withdrawal requires responsibility,

a returning with the change in hand,

not merely with a picaresque travelogue

nor even a set of tactics

for springing the locks and riding the rails

to hideouts of abundant seclusion;

but with the change in hand.

from The Litanies of Mistrust

 

February 24, 2008  (I was 63)

 

         from The Litanies of Mistrust

Never Trust:

a teacher who doesn’t read

a teacher who got straight A’s in high school

a teacher who needs a plus or minus to distinguish a grade

a teacher who knows the date by the text page he’s on

a teacher who can’t return assignments within two days

a teacher hired in September

Never Trust:

a teacher who doesn’t love his subject

a teacher who loves his religion more than his subject

a teacher who’s subject is his religion

a teacher who nominates himself for an award

a teacher who’d rather fund raise than teach

a teacher who measures success only in test scores

Never Trust:

a teacher who can’t tell a joke

a teacher who can’t talk with his hands

a teacher who can’t climb a tree

a teacher who can’t tap dance

a teacher who never pisses off the principal

a teacher who wants to be superintendent

Never Trust:

a teacher with shiny shoes

a teacher who orders all the condiments on the side

a teacher to split the check without itemizing

a teacher who denies his family and concedes to a bad contract

a teacher who thinks he doesn’t need a union

from The Poetry of Urgency

 

February 23, 1975  (I was 30)

 

  from The Poetry of Urgency

It’s

like stealing second;

there’s this cautious hesitancy

that tenses your stomach

then a mad sprint.

The object’s to fly straight,

the delightful dive           

backward into the skidding dust,

the settling of everything;

the call.

 

Winter Evening in Kilkare Woods

 

February 22, 1971  (I was 26)

 

Winter Evening in Kilkare Woods

The sun is set below my sight,

I shiver in the half chill of half night.

The leaves of trees and grass are wet,

silver coated in the cold.

 

The sky reflects an empty mirror;

the wind makes haunts of dog howls.

Oaks grow gray and twisted as martyrs

beneath the Eucharist Moon.

1 Finger Exorcise

 

February 21,1974  (I was 29)

 

         1 Finger Exorcise

I am so comically alive

I wonder seriously how

I survive  I’m possessed

I’m teeming with inept imps

I swear everyone limps

I can’t be blamed

I haven’t been the same

It’s those imps

those maniac monkeys

who take over and there’s nothing to do

They’ve got you

Living possessed

like you’ve never been blessed

those screamers make a laugh out of you

Those devils whose revels bevel the spirit

Boredom or passion

whatever the fashion

they howl you ashen

What the hell

can’t you tell

It’s the imps

It’s gotta be the imps

you know it’s the imps

What else could it be

but the imps

Sport without spectators

 

February 20, 2010  (I was 65)

 

Sport without spectators

other than those who play

with rules made up that day

 

and one team only

split to fit the game

among whoever came

 

Athletes without memories

of yesterday’s win

and cheating was a sin

 

It’s a wonder how

so far from here

we were young every year

While I sit upright on the floor

 

February 19, 2021  (I was 76)

 

While I sit upright on the floor

to meditate I stare at the wall

where an empty four plug socket

looks back each with its vertical eye slits

and round grounded mouths humming ohm

A chorus offering no resistance

I’m gonna write a love poem

 

February 18, 1970  (I was 25)

 

I’m gonna write a love poem

be so sweet it’ll rot your teeth

I’m gonna write a love poem

and send it to ya on a Super Chief

It’ll be about flowers and bees

and it’ll make all sorts of pleas

for your:

1)    attention

2)    love

3)    etc.

Won’t you read my poem?

Please be no scoffer at my offers

Accept my lines into your home

and I’ll open up my coffers

of even golder love

to lavish upon you

like a spring rain of feathers from a dove

Innocence in a sense

 

February 17, 2021  (I was 76)

 

Innocence in a sense

Impossible unaffectedness

A rose looks like a flower

that is conscious of being looked at

What other can be expected

when we say a rose has arisen

It is enough to make a pale rose blush

The scent of a rose is an ascent

A question is posed

answered in assent

that a rose is

what Gertrude said

Public storage units are everywhere

 

February 16, 2008  (I was 63)

 

Public storage units are everywhere

cars have been locked out of garages for decades

bins and boxes hold assorted parts of lives

The way too much we’ve had for years

we feel too guilty to simply discard

and pay instead to rent it space

dollars spent to keep the past alive

long after it has lost its productive use

Now a shell without substance or context

emitting acrid odors of dissolution

tightly packed next to one another

little mausoleums for the partly dead

likely to last beyond the memories of their owners

Left at last for strangers to sort through

hoping to find some artifact of value

without any knowledge of the curse upon it

The day was a swirl and flow

 

February 15, 2019  (I was 74)

 

The day was a swirl and flow of eddies

Grey clouds curling round the comet of blue

Do-se-do called by the gusting wind

Bright streaks of rain through sunlit sky

Curtsy and bow of bay and pine to circle round

Bobbing heads and twisting trunks

Song and sway of feng shui

Turn and return of two seasons at once

Verse and reverse weather going and coming

in decided indecision of Yang and Yin

Every moment not busy being winter

was busy being spring

Putting on and taking off apparel

appropriate gesture for a state of mind

A youthful embrace of the natural elements

experienced caution encountering extremities

remembering the dance that others now dance

Breath of air washed cold and clean

mindful iteration and reiteration

Driving spikes

 

February 14, 1974  (I was 29)

 

Driving spikes

with strong strokes

sinking steel into good wood

 

Driving spikes

arm hand hammer

current flowing through the muscle

 

Driving spikes

each reverberation

sets the next stroke

 

Setting spikes

speed the likes

of which you’ve never seen

 

Hitting nails

into rails

striking mechanical chants

 

Vision focused

arcs defined

strong stood stance

non-participant

 

February 13,2007  (I was 62)

 

         non-participant

Spent so many years being the expert

It feels good to shrug and say I don’t know

 

I won’t touch a lottery ticket the state sells

to fund education (hah!) and crooks

 

I won’t pay for bottled water

no better than from the city tap

 

I won’t watch a commercial

with the remote in my hand

 

I won’t advocate pre-emptive military

strikes to secure oil

 

I won’t believe testimony procured

through torture and mental duress

 

I won’t trust an administration

that lies as a matter of policy

Addressing Abe Lincoln in 1975

 

February 12, 1975  (I was 30)

 

Addressing Abe Lincoln in 1975

Abe Lincoln

tall father in the stone chair

America’s comforting conscience

these hundred years

nothing left of you is merely real

We have come to understand your solitude

we have grieved

we have become war weary

we have lost faith

the captain a lost shadow in the man

We sit before the new world stage

with vague memories of other theaters

other characters other meanings

The great works remain

 

February 11, 2012  (I was 67)

 

The great works remain

the makers are taken

sky word note paint stone

voice ear eye hand gone

 

That done deletes need

but may be a seed

sower left sown

creation now done

 

works must conceive one

in their own image

deduce a being

that may have made them

 

story song prayers

cathedral prayers

on canvas prayers

no petitioner

straw

 

February 10,1974  (I was 29)

 

         straw

The grass on the hillside is tender

the small flowers make their annual proclamation

insects are flying in tandem

The sun opens every pore

releases every fertile fragrance

birdsong fills the canyon

Ignorant man is ignored by nature

the significant ladybug walks along the blade

The bird chorus (so beautiful various and new)

will not be interrupted by a distant car starter

that will not will not start the car

or by the small piston plane sucking air in

to snuff it out again

Both are soon lost in the unconscious melody

and the silent motions of flight

So why have I not renounced my own noise

I take no lasting joy from the mountain

I have mechanical commitments to my own devices

and I am not a bird