The Days Left Behind

I asked the mourning dove

where to find the days left behind. 

"In the dew," she replied.

"In the wild grass

 on the slope beside the river.

Hurry," she warned. "Winter already whispers."

I asked the vulture

where to find the days left behind.

"In the fire pit," he replied.

"In the ashes 

full of hands and faces.

Go slowly," he warned. "They will wait."

I asked the falcon

where to find the days left behind.

"In my nest," she replied.

"I used them

for my children, bald and bottomless.

Go now," she warned. "My talons are teachers."

I asked the gentle mourning dove.

I asked the grim vulture,

but the lesson lay

at the feet of the falcon

in a slurry of time, need, and blood.

Grackles

 The grackles have returned

because Detroit is not San Juan Capistrano and they are not swallows. Like Spanish grandmothers wearing mantillas they walk with dignity born of pain at spring weddings and morning funerals. The grackles have returned like circuit riders to small villages carrying bibles and handguns down lonely lanes. I find the finest one and lure him into a dance. We are corn kernels, matching cutlery, a marriage of local beauty and somber bird. The grackles are back and have not killed anyone so far, in the scramble beneath the feeder. They only did that for one summer, years ago when I held a dead fledgling in my palm and the sun shone brightly like a smiling dandy.

Moonbird

 I was speaking, a moaning call,

a spreading gray constellation,

a smoke of words

but you weren't listening anymore.

It is the only language I have.

I live in the interstices

between seed and fruit,

seed and earth,

sea and air,

love and absence.

I have come a very long way, and yet

I am as gray and unremarkable as old lumber.

My love expresses itself inside the earth

and produces a single emissary.

The way is long, the continents pass by.

We meet again only at intervals, but on the same ground.

I was trying to tell you about moonbirds

in their secrecy and their millions.

They seem to vanish, they glide without effort,

but are always there, like love or frailty.

I was speaking, a moaning call,

a smoke of words between sea and air

but you, you love the smell of milled wood,

and weren't listening anymore.

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