Nature

From morning’ s mouth
the bones emerge,
a prayer is whispered
over rounded horns;
the prairie is beyond
the quivering hump
and holy smoke sparkles
released in the breath.
Braided sweetgrass,
be about their hooves;
although the grip of hunger
lies heavy on the land,
let endless native grasses grow
among the yellow stones
and between the stars.
Even if only one man had
begun to sing, actually
it was thousands, She who came
to Wisconsin farmers
and transformed their lives,

around the house stood an
orchard of plum, apple and pear
a blackwalnut tree, one white pine,
groves of white oak and willow clumps
the home of Jessie was largely redwood

blood, flesh and bone sprouted
inside her womb of redwood
for five generations
the trees now stand unpruned and wild

after relocating so many years before the War
the seeds of Jessie have returned

1

song gives birth to
the song and dance
as the dance steps
the story speaks

2

the icy mountain water
that pierces the deep thirst
drums my fire
drums my medicine pouch

3

deep within my blood
a feather in the sky
foam on clear water
Tayko-mol!

4

free as the bear
and tall as redwoods
throb my blood roots
when spirits ride high

5

a valley ripe with acorns
and yellow poppies everywhere
as i stand here
dreaming of you

6

1

I keep placing my hands over
my face, the fingertips just
resting on the place where I feel
my eyebrows and the fine end
of a bone. My eyes are covered
with the blood of my hands, my
palms hold
my jaws. I do this at dinner.
My daughter asks
Are you all right?
and by a common miracle
when I smile
she knows I am.

2

I ask her what she will do
after we eat. Sleep she
tells me. But I will clean
the deer skull, wash it.

You hear the roadhouse before you see it,
Its four-beat country tunes
Amplified like surf through the woods,
Silencing bullfrog and red-tailed hawk,
Setting beards of moss dancing
On dim, indeterminate trees
That border two-lane blacktop.
Docked tonight, you reveal the badge
Of the farmer, that blanched expanse of skin
Where cap shades face, babyhood

Darling, I leave you the forever unblooming
twig half-sunk in spring mud & the Nature that allows
such delicate & lasting atrocity.

Darling, darling, darling: my voice is a branch that would reach.

I leave you the ragged sky, once full of cloud & now
not. I leave you these things just as I leave

you: graceful passage from one something to the next.
Darling, even in this my voice dissipates

Be precise
authority is magic.
When you think you've got it straight
wax wane declination
feel the movement under your hand
one summer morning
as you observe it set
then rise that night.
Always use a well-sharpened pencil
followed by a good eraser.
Watch the white emerge.

I’ve expanded like the swollen door in summer
to fit my own dimension. Your loneliness

is a letter I read and put away, a daily reminder
in the cry of the magpie that I am

still capable of inflicting pain
at this distance.

Like a painting, our talk is dense with description,
half-truths, landscapes, phrases layered

with a patina over time. When she came into my life
I didn’t hesitate.

Fingers:
Cramped, you are hardly anything but fidgets.
We, active, differentiate the digits:
Whilst you are merely little toe and big
(Or, in the nursery, some futile pig)
Through vital use as pincers there has come
Distinction of the finger and the thumb;
Lacking a knuckle you have sadly missed
Our meaningful translation to a fist;
And only by the curling of that joint

Listen, Sanoe
Dewy lehua bud
Here I am
Waiting for your voice.

The answer comes
I am satisfied
Softly, sweetheart
You excite my whole being.

My body is waiting
Waiting there in yearning belief
How are we to fulfill
The desire of our thoughts?

Calling to you, my water lily
Budding for the two of us
Here close by is a compliment
The manu comes to deliver.

The Queen is listening
The aroma of the scents comes together
Mixes and rises upward
So similar, so alike.