NOVEMBER, BLOOD MOON

i.
Elk skate the high ridges,
throw shadows
bluer than sky.

The trees, old women,
let fall their garments,
step into this final
furnace.

Last night the coyotes taught their pups
to bring down gut-shot deer.

ii.
Fox --
banked fire smouldering
in the dry brome
and snowberry
sudden
air gusts up

and the grouse
exploding
fragments, wings

aflame

iii.
On the road shoulder,
deer's ribcage
completely denuded
of flesh, intact

spine attached, one entire
leg (furred
below
the knee joint,
black hoof) bound
to the shattered
pelvic cradle

so naked, as if
wind
were both butcher
and surgeon

and all of us opened
on her table


WAITING

Rain, that foreign language
the sky no longer speaks.

In fields of spent hay, each stalk
of mullein, tall as a child.

Dry stuttering wind:
"W" an impossible letter.

Dust and dust and dust,
ash and ash,
falling.

So hot
the resins in the bark
of pines
are vapor ---

when trees torch
the first fire doesn't
touch them

it burns
the invisible

then leaps
to the body,
like all lovers, consuming,
aflame.


AUTUMN HAIKU

All afternoon, old
dogs grow young again, swimming
after fallen ducks.

Flashfire in dry corn
stubble --- pheasants rocketing
upwards, bright missiles.

Battalions of snow
geese, arrows of cold purpose ---
shadows cross the moon.

Low clouds. Hollow breath
of frost on the wind --- mourning
flute, the horned owl's call.

TO TOP >