As a Portent

At least there was a
                                             song   timorous of

wing-beat snowdrift ash
                                             of red horizon

then somewhere calling
                                             as under one’s breath

(I did not hope you
                                            would find me wanting)

and the next extinction
                                            on every wing— 

Credit

Copyright @ 2014 by David Baker. Used with permission of the author.

About this Poem

“Phrases and voices surround us always, like notes of music whose sources may be just out of sight, out of reach. Pieces of a story, a relationship, a landscape—here I let them coexist without too much worry over explanations. Here too I’m interested in both form and fracture, letting the syllabic lines maintain a rift, a caesura, as part of the rhythm of it all.”
—David Baker