Chickweed, Hens
The chickweed in its loose lush
viridian sprawl hurls out
arms and spokes, wheels reeling from
heart-hubs into green galaxies
of spear-heart leaves, spattered with
speckled stars—all light-spawned
themselves from the nearest star,
this one sun. To eat of this
opportunistic shallow-
root, this transfigured sunlight,
you must grasp the center;
you must take it by the heart,
then bear its pulsing spirals
to hungry hens whose harsh beaks
peck it apart, snap it down,
gulp up tiny lives riding
its long sprays and spurs, devour
the vivid freshness of spring-
greens to reverse those spinning wheels,
turn those armed clocks back to sun-
orange, yolk-gold, fat food: the
other transfiguration,
this work of winged, warm-blooded
reptiles, the savage women
of summer, the layers of life.
Night Driving, Lighted Windows
Despite all the night terrors, despite
the knotted fists and brutal words,
toilets and trash cans running over,
chained dogs, the reek of meth
or whiskey, fabric softener or vomit,
every lamplit window glows gold
as every other—no matter what’s gone
on inside, or is still going.
And each white shed-fluorescent speaks
of workbenches, oiled chisels,
screwdrivers, someone shaping
a shelf or rewiring a washer,
making, mending. Passing
those calm yellow squares,
I can almost believe
in someone quietly handing coffee,
a towel, a deep cup of soup,
and someone else glancing up: thanks.
I can almost believe
that if someone lost came
tapping at that window,
the bolt would fly back in welcome.
Those windows’ warm gleams
shine out for miles, telling their
beautiful stories, some of them
maybe true.
—And I, on my way home,
plunging into my brief funnel of light,
I fly past like a witch on the gale,
soothing down fear, smoothing
wrath with my passage: my invisible
gaze remaking the world
for a moment into that place where even now
we are all warm and have enough
inside our square stars, we are
forgiving those who share
the world with us, we are making
and mending what we can.
The Promise
Life-root, blazing out in your golden rags.
Killdeer, skimming the soccer field,
pealing the glad word of May. Soft lamb’s
quarter, powdered with pewter dust
that might’ve come from the Horsehead
Nebula, putting spinach to shame
with your mineral riches. Wood
thrush trilling your deep flute-
notes from the high canopy, almost never
seen. Tiny henbit, more glamorous
and sexy in your freckled orchid pink
than Marilyn Monroe’s…et cetera.
Et cetera. The list goes on longer
and deeper than any human voice,
and how many hear any of you
over the clamor of ad and ego,
how many know you were ever
here? Nor can I save you
when they come with the mowers,
the poisons, nor regrow rainforests
for thrushes, nor make the world
plant milkweed for its true-born monarchs.
I can do only what I am
doing: look for you. Listen
as you proclaim your endless
names in all the tongues
of earth. Tell those names back:
as long as lichens
star this mountain’s boulder-bones
with flat seaglass rosettes,
so that even the rock blooms
some wordless joy
into the day’s high air, I will
not cease telling. I will go on
doing my work in this world.
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