Between Songbirds and Crows

Who is speaking?

Loquacious Calypso, she twist rib cage left and right waving arms above.

Her fringed voice, balmy in an orange batik dress.

She calls Llamas, pregnant goats, hushes the spaniels.

"I couldn't wear perfume," she comments, "So..."

palms a gesture around the fir needles, bits of pine cone in her hair.

Small birds perch on a tree's crown.

"Oh, darling, where have you been?"

She speaks to the thumbnail lunar witness,

Does' orbit, warm up chorus of Spirit-dogs.

With pleasures of other stories,

Lion claw of moon ignites celestial homes,

poised in dreaming dusk, arousal of Mars.

Are you familiar with the theory of hot causing coolness?

Wasabi and hot miso works.

Are you familiar with retrieving your soul?

If you are uncomfortable don't attempt it, now.

Anima will slip in mellifluous night, cooling breath.

Morning delivers quiet reprisal of hymn.

Yellow-breasted chats, red-winged black birds, parading quails speaking: light

stretching distressed fibrous tethers of spider web.

Afternoon burns off fog. Rocks do not move or stretch with warmth.

No one walked here, before you.

Not your mother, or grandmothers.

Fate will answer.

An ant may carry a large burden, but once found, shares in beneficial

originality.

They never record the mating of eagles,

circling in ascension, too small to be seen from land.

Eagles do not easily mate.

They mate for life.

A single bald eagle flies to skyline.

Will you have children?

After caring for mother eight years, siblings?

After meeting benignly omitted and handsome fathers?

In Mali, one places the baby in the center of the compound.

An eight-year-old child carries a baby all day and they are safe.

If one had a partner who easily nurtured, maybe.

Yes, only with a partner who appreciates a child's significance,

bar one, for the sake of the child, if the father is of that mind.

Talking on the path after twilight

A great horned owl hooted. Pause.

Silence. Walk and chatter.

The owl hoots.

At every attempt to listen, quiet.

In silence, tilting your best ear, venture a preference, the omniscient perched

in mysterious vocal acceptance of night or your own breath.

Supreme hunters do not reveal exact location as a specialty.

Mosquitoes are not worth anything.

What purpose is served? They carry malicious diseases.

Killing them all will surely reveal their function.

Whoops! Made a big mistake on the one!

They are food for bats and birds.

Once, a slow motion poetic sequence of animal life on the television

convinced us.

The last image was a close intimate focus on a being with ethereal and courtly

fluttering.

The evanescent wings closed forward in prayer -- a mosquito in flight.

They follow her halo of warmth.

Her present infatuation is Mr. Browning.

He's an innovator, the sleekest of them all.

Bounding to her apples, she wishes love, for herself, not her sweets.

Try feeding him something else.

Food is as love; we crave variety.

She will titillate his palate with nasturtiums next.

He has pretty eyes. Unbelievably soft lips nuzzle her breast pockets.

Whew! His butt is not dirty, like the rest.

Did you seem him? He bounded across the field!

She wants to show him off, walk him to the beach.

"I love that boy! Como te llamas?"

"Me llamo Sr. Browning, belle donna, mi corazon."

Here, crows are obsessive black pieces of past fires, nonstop talking,

pulling up

all emergent sunflowers.

A child yells in the distance, "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!"

She does not refine dialogue.

She works in sound.

Stop. Cawing is not idle work.

Caw prettily, cackle soft throaty words.

Please, cover your beak when coughing.

Leap at the shoots of complacent sunflowers, tomorrow's facade stares at

difference, authenticity singled from the rest, the best seed.

While polite, the windy trees make jokes not to be ignored.

Laugh until your ribs and back hurt, learn Yoruba,

speak phrases in Manchurian, sha, sha, sha, shu, read four thousand

characters, perhaps Korean, listen to Lushootseed nightly as Earth articulates.

Listen to the story.

She traveled and learned to heal others while mending herself, removing her

clothes and gifting them inside out.

Copyright University of Nebraska Press 2002
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