In the owl’s flight
as in the conifers it left:
that silence.
It’s enormous,
the frozen carcass of a cow
eaten by chickadees.
O trees like forks,
the sky too is a dish
best served cold.
January noon
Primary sources
One line for all
the caravans of the internet—
its wavy shadow.
Looking at bird tracks,
I feel a certain anxiety
of influence.
I chew on a piece
of congealed black cherry sap
from a head-sized burl.
Nuthatch
Nuthatch at the window,
probing under the sill
for frozen bugs and pupae,
one eye on the glass
where, behind the bare trees,
my bare face swims up—
that odd ice
on a sideways pond
with its year-round winter…
Haustorial
The sound of porcupine teeth
in the oak’s crown,
as lethal as mistletoe.
Ahead of me on the path,
the tracks of three deer
braiding and unbraiding.
I reach inside my coat
and find a twig. It’s happening
sooner than I thought.
Walking the line
High winds. I press an ear
to the trunk of a ridge-top oak
and hear nothing but wind.
My footprints in the snow
are more than erased;
they’re raised up, scattered like ashes.
The woodpecker must hear any sound
an oak can make.
It taps out a response.
Gospel
Five below zero.
The stream bank is garlanded
with flowers of frost.
The dogmatic drone
of a single-prop plane,
its cross-shaped silhouette.
The sky is blue as a bruise.
My lungs ache
just from trying to breathe.
Wildstyle
On a low mound in the woods,
two coyotes have left
overlapping turds—
like graffiti tags
made of mouse hair
and small bones.
I follow their tracks.
They diverge in an old clearcut
choked with tree-of-heaven.
Close to home
All this time,
six well-used deer beds
just out of sight from the porch!
The old outhouse
half-fallen into its hole—
how long has the roof been gone?
Even the snowy hillside,
the way it bends the trees’
harp-string shadows…
Lay of the land
The long, low ridges
in the blue distance are edged
with bands of yellow.
Otherwise, the clouds
are heavy as an old
wool blanket.
I pull the shades for a nap,
a wakeful woodchuck thumping
under my floor.
Primary school
Children in the woods:
at first I mistake their distant yelps
for coyotes.
When did I stop climbing trees?
Views are best when seasoned
with a little terror.
Once I found a dead cicada,
stuck half-way out
of its former self.