Forced to fly lower by unexpected rains
a thousand songbirds passing over the lake

near McCormick Place slap lit windowpanes—
and fall in yellow heaps across the lawn.

In Muncie, Indiana, no one at dawn
hears swelling choruses in the sycamores,

and later, in Louisville, garage doors
open but no birds put on a show

whistling  seebit, seebit,  or whywhywhy 
and hunters in Tennessee, hearing only crows,

stick in their earbuds for the morning lies.
Alabama commuters glimpse no feathers

brightening the woods in the grey weather.
Down at the Texas border no cheerful zreee

encourages the migrants sleeping in tents
or wakes a child to point up with glee,

and the palms in Mexico do not shake and sway
with warblers in their fronds resting a day

for the flight to Guatemala, the final swing
of the songbird migration to their winter place

where Monarch butterflies clap their wings
calling for music in that silent space.

Naked carp swim upstream    and spawn in fresh water,
then fry return     to this 3,260-meter-high saline lake—

we stroll past black sheep      chained by their necks; 
later, our Yi host invites us    to join him at a low table:

boiled mutton, intestines, potatoes,     and red chile 
powder are set in red-swirling,     black lacquer bowls.

Closing my eyes,     I see wind turbines along a ridge, 
transmission lines     that arc from tower to tower 

across green hills;     a herder opens a gate, and black 
yaks slip through—when I walk    to a stream 

that feeds the lake, I follow     a path lined with red
and orange marigolds in pots,     wonder

who surrenders to reach     a higher plane of existence?
At a temple built and rebuilt     since 307 CE, 

I see a persimmon tree     alongside a cypress,
where lovers,     whetted by prayer, leave plaques

with dangling red strings.     Boating on this lake,
we make an oval track     on the surface; and, gazing 

at rapeseed     flowering yellow along the shore, 
we suspend but do not dissipate     the anguish of this world.

I’m afraid I was wrong about the world ending.
The man sitting on the bench—is simply a man on fire.
His fingers; reaching for solitude, something 
brief. The day becomes a sigh of pigeons digging 
For stones. I stand near the station
Too sick to notice the bench—or the man—or fire
Or whether I’ve been spared from grief.
Even the roadkill, coveting concrete, stands 
And walks. Where are those left behind? 
I thought I knew something 
About Armageddon. I apologize, 
But when the world pauses, I will sing naked 
In the heat and grow a forest of sycamores. 
Who can survive an apocalypse 
And live? I made the roadkill a god 
But I’m not allowed to speak for god 
So I wait.

There are human beings who seem to regard the place as craftily 
    as we do—who seem to feel that it is a good place to come 
    home to. On what a river; wide—twinkling like a chopped sea under some 
          of the finest shipping in the

world: the square-rigged four-master, the liner, the battleship, like the two- 
    thirds submerged section of an iceberg; the tug—strong moving thing, 
    dipping and pushing, the bell striking as it comes; the steam yacht, lying 
          like a new made arrow on the

stream; the ferry-boat—a head assigned, one to each compartment, making 
    a row of chessmen set for play. When the wind is from the east, 
    the smell is of apples; of hay, the aroma increased and decreased 
         suddenly as the wind changes;

of rope; of mountain leaves for florists. When it is from the west, it is 
    an elixir. There is occasionally a parrakeet 
    arrived from Brazil, clasping and clawing; or a monkey—tail and feet 
         in readiness for an over-

ture. All palms and tail; how delightful! There is the sea, moving the bulk- 
    head with its horse strength; and the multiplicity of rudders 
    and propellers; the signals, shrill, questioning, peremptory, diverse; 
         the wharf cats and the barge dogs—it

is easy to overestimate the value of such things. One does 
    not live in such a place from motives of expediency 
    but because to one who has been accustomed to it, shipping is the 
         most congenial thing in the world. 

I with my gun 
am a good mother

I cut my daughters mouth 
on teeth 
in the oatmeal

I pay heavily 
for the meat 
I slip past her gums

so she will 
value the taste 
of blood and 
                     metal

We live in the country 
with our designer sheep

and rescued dogs 
pace the fences 
we have made of the field

let our eggs roll 
from the counter

With a bird in my hand 
trembling      until faint 
                       until not

I tell her stories 
of the sea 
of her own 
          violent arc 
she must inherit 
and shape with her small hands

to buoy the barrel

I love the silent hour of night, 
  For blissful dreams may then arise, 
Revealing to my charmèd sight 
  What may not bless my waking eyes.

And then a voice may meet my ear, 
  That death has silenced long ago; 
And hope and rapture may appear 
  Instead of solitude and woe.

Cold in the grave for years has lain 
  The form it was my bliss to see; 
And only dreams can bring again 
  The darling of my heart to me.