And then rushed into the embrace of the mountains
Of the Kontum Plateau, ferried through Lo Xo pass,
Blew past Măng Đen, dizzied among hairpin turns,
Floating in the lushness 1,200 m above sea level,
Amid a mosaic of prime evergreen, gasping.
And up there we saw: strata of emerald forms,
Of beech, laurel, magnolia, heather, and myrtle.
Under unbroken canopy, in the undergrowth
Of that species rich upper montane wet forest,
Hidden somewhere in that mystery must be
Our very own Chestnut-eared Laughingthrush.
Garrulax konkakinhensis was our day’s journey
And query, who appeared in our dreams calling.
So we began our search, checked known locations.
At the first spot, magpies. The next: babblers.
But we kept looking, listening, knowing the forest
Gives up its secrets slowly. And passion we knew
From experience associates with wild patience.
On our lips the other name, Khướu Kon Ka Kinh,
For the shy terrestrial bird who has no need for names,
But sustenance and song. Then came a rasping buzz.
Close by us, there in the undergrowth, a voice
Signed among the trees. A few turns of the
Kaleidoscope, new shapes and colors rearranged
Themselves into the winged creature we sought out:
Brown and black dappled, spotted, and speckled,
The chestnut patch brushed behind the knowing eye,  
Blurring well into the daylight world of shadows.
As if a slight breeze stirred, gentle movements
Among the leaves and branches told us our bird
Retreated out of sight. We all breathed again.
The laughingthrush exists. The mountain forest exists.
This was only prelude, for we struck deeper into
The interior seeking greater clarity, closer listening.
And so we stood like trees staring back into the trees,
Ears peering through the green abundance,
Touching the colorful cacophony of sounds.
Reader, desire follows you into the field,
Where what you want colors what you see.
On the road back to Pleiku, looking out across
The highlands that held us, we all smiled—
There was no need for words. Each replayed
In their mind’s eye the day’s loveliness.
Then came news of extinction. The Javan rhino
Dead, the last of his kind found slaughtered
At Cát Tiên, horn sawed off. Joy fell from the sky.
Let us not tell our children a story that begins,
Once in the forests there was a laughingthrush . . .
We had met with Chestnut-eared Laughingthrush
Again and again, there in the heart of the heart
Of the forest, there where our fellow humans
Had not cleared, hunted, trapped, and defoliated
Life out of existence. There sweet thrush-like notes
May stream yet as water over rows of stones.
Others there sang the songs of their species too.
And our bodies also lighter with laughter.

The Earthlings arrived unannounced, entered
without knocking, removed their shoes 
and began clipping their toenails. 
They let the clippings fall wherever.  
They sighed loudly as if inconvenienced.
We were patient. We knew our guests
were in an unfamiliar environment; they needed 
time to adjust. For dinner, we prepared
turkey meatloaf with a side of cauliflower. 
This is too dry, they said.
This is not like what our mothers made. 
We wanted to offer a tour of our world, 
demonstrate how we freed ourselves 
from the prisons of linear time.
But the Earthlings were already spelunking 
our closets, prying tools 
from their containers and holding them 
to the light. What’s this? they demanded.
What’s this? What’s this? And what’s this?
That’s a Quantum Annihilator; put that down.
That’s a Particle Grinder; please put that down.  
We could show you how to heal the sick, we said.
We could help you feed every nation, commune 
with the all-seeing sentient energy that palpitates 
through all known forms of matter. 
Nah! they said. Teach us to vaporize a mountain! 
Teach us to turn the moon into revenue! 
Then the Earthlings 
left a faucet running and flooded our basement.

In   the   milliseconds   &      minutes     &  
millennia  when   I    no   longer   am   the  
bundle of meat & need  unpoeming  itself  
in   the still   hours   of  a   full   or   empty  
house,  I  dream  my  eye socket   encased  
underground   with    root    &   worm    &  
watershed threading  through it.  |  |  The  
summers   become  hotter  &   hotter.  |  |  
Unbearable  &  luminous,  the  refrain  of  
the  song  of  extinction— 

My  children  &  my   children’s   children  
will  inherit   the  edges of cumulonimbus  
clouds,     the       unexpected      sunflower  
blooming   from   a     second-story     rain 
gutter,   the  gentleness   of   the  marbling 
sunlight  on  the  fur  of a  rabbit  stilled in  
a  suburban  backyard.  |  |  I  am  in   love 
 with    the   Earth.   |  |   There    are    still  
blackberries  enough   to  light the    brain  
with the star charts of a sweetness— 

&  yet  &  yet  &  yet, the  undertow  of  the  
expanding    universe     repeats    to      the  
mitochondria    in   my    cells.   The     tiny  
bluebird  in my throat continues   to   build  
her  nest   with  twigs   & mud  &  scraps of  
Amazon packing tape.  |  |   I feel  the  now 
of   now  fluttering   diastole  &  systole   in  
my  biceps  & lungs  &  toe  bones   |  |  The  
oranges  &  reds  &   yellows  of   my   many  
Octobers   leaf  to   life   &   spill   from   my  
mouth:  unaccountable  acorns,   midnight 
loam, overgrown meadows,  

a wee spore adrift among the fireflies—

but in this poem nothing dies.

Alone in the poem, I make myself
brave. No—I show brave 
to my body, take both to the ocean. 

Come hurricane, come rip current, 
come toxic algal bloom. 

In March, I drift past the estuary
to watch an eight-foot dolphin 
lap the Mill River 

like a cat pacing a bathtub, 
sick and disoriented. 

Biologists will unspool her empty intestines, 
weigh her gray cerebellum.
She swam a great distance to die 

alone. I’m sorry—I lied. I can’t control 
what lives or dies. I need a place

to stow my brain. To hold 
each moment close as a sand flea
caught in my knuckle hairs.
  
Please, someone—
tell me a poem can coax 

oil from a sea bird’s throat. 
Tell me what to do
with my hands—my hands—

what can my hands do now?