II. All Names by Which You Flew

x. royal egle

The Greater Eagle

Nature’s golden eagle is a reminder

That this was not that King whose wings

Were torn off; nor does The Greater Eagle

Have the mind of man or angel, although

It bears the most striking of her cherub’s

Four faces. “You are my only bird

Who has flown to Andromeda!” she sings.

“This is the secret behind my song

Oft repeated throughout the eons:

That your glance pierces the Sun.”

xi. BLACK WARRIOR

Hawk!

Reptilian wisdom and none of the gentleness of a dove

Defines you. So, dreading flight and their deaths thereof,

Fish and serpents, mice and lesser birds resolved to elude you.

Broad winged, zone-tailed—all names by which you flew

All afternoon—white-tailed, rough-legged and sharp-shinned,

Black and gray—the all-assailing one from wind—

Red-shouldered tyrant: caught word of just in farmer’s talk—

We waited on a lookout rock, until my daughters cried out, “Hawk!”

xii. gentil faucon

Meditation

Deep in dawn’s reflection on the lake,

Soaring swiftly past a hundred fish,

A shadow sped to grant a sovereign wish.

Down it stooped and killed a rattlesnake,

And even memories could not overtake

It’s ominously allusive swish.

In privileged sight, prized simply to astonish—

This Peregrine was glimpsed by some mistake.

Go wander by a lake at early hour

When reflection is life’s greatest feature

And nature is the sacred text you read;

You’ll always find a picture of such power

More distinct—although, no other creature

Of higher wonder or more thunderous speed.

xiii. merlion that paineth Himself

Her Fable of Solitude

A boy and a girl gathered to tell a story right where,

Many worlds ago, an ember had fallen from the wing

Of a phoenix. Before their story had the chance to become

A daydream, they returned to their separate apartments,

And that very afternoon, a merlin falcon landed on the girl’s

Windowsill; there, between her bedroom and the noisy

City far below, she reached her arm out instinctively—

As though she had governed falcons for an entire lifetime—

And for several lovely hours, the falcon and this girl

Unriddled each other’s souls and marveled in their resolved

Existences, marveled how the sun resided above them still,

How their friendship must have saved everything

A billion years before; and, being merciful to all earthly

Loves, whether wretched or unknowing, this girl reopened

Her window to the evening sky, and just like an ember

Right there in the dusky air, the merlin redisappeared.

xiv. with hir yen meeke

The Mourning Dove

How did I find simplicity without you?

Now, what was all this life to live? We already

Knew how to cut and push and pull through

Hell. But the world, too, became unsteady.

My dark sorrow was as broad dispersing

Circles in the water. Like Noah’s dove,

My sadness found nowhere for perching

On this earth. I had lost my sovereign love.

Then, one day, because my soul was tortured—

Just as the darkened sky was torn apart—

I could hear a bird within the orchard

Whose song alighted in my clouded heart;

Rain fell, as tears fall with each mournful coo:

Oo-wah hoo, hoo-hoo; oo-wah hoo, hoo-hoo.

xv. swan, ayains

Mute Swan

After the sky itself was displaced all night by the vast, omniscient

Death of all life called a hurricane, almost unnoticed,

Like a seraphim, a swan descended with two strong gentle wings

And passed over the only pond. With two wings of fire, its reflection

Burned within the sight of an orphan; and with the two wings

Of its shadow, it sailed past the final tree holding up the heavens.

xii. The owle eek

Survival: Bubo Scandiacus

With eyes like suns eclipsed by event horizons,

with glacier breast and landmarked wings,

it soars upon the planet's heated breath,

above another war. Seascapes spread,

pulled into forms of waves of clouds, unremitted,

fashioned after earth's ice foundations.

And not slowly. This is no poetry. Hovering,

circling for the sake of love, diving, clasping

to the first equation--this is no metaphor,

no innuendo. Not even science. This is not

the snowy owl's demise. Love's survival is supreme defiance.

xviii. theef

On Wings as Black and Bright

On wings as black and bright as outer space

a lovely crow with a yellow beak

landed on a rock beside a daring man

who stopped to fix his gaze upon the bird.

With earth's apex now towering near,

he considered this amazing flight. "I'm here

because I am a man, and alone.

At this utmost height I talk to you! How

are you here, gorgeous little bird?" The bird

shook its feathers as thundersnow

echoed far below. For a moment

the man rested. "Tonight, the world will fold

into its shadow, just like you fold your pretty

wing now over your yellow beak." And

giving the bird part of his sandwich, he

finished his soliloquy thus: "My mother

always insisted that someday she would

set all sorrow down for at least one morning;

she said I was too happy to ever act

gloomy and stern, and that I didn't need

to worry and should just enjoy my sandwich;

Well, what she said was actually true,

mighty bird, except that she couldn't have been

talking about herself, or my dad or me.

No, amazing little crow, she must

have meant all that weightlessness

concerning something more like you. Tonight

our world will fold into its shadow" The man,

then reaching higher up the cliff, gasped

while the bird flew down into the storm.

xv. crane, geant

How to Save the Whooping Crane

the exact quandaries remain; however you can leave

the stormy hoard of snow and take

a sheet of cumulus rain

lit with lightning; find your daughters

who double the through-lines with caring hands

and kindly ask them if they would please begin to fashion

the expanse into belly and mountain folds

with days and streams as reference points;

they can take hold of the outer edges

and smooth them towards the center to reveal

the first structure and shape of the possibility for actual flying;

soon they’ll figure out the petal fold, the reverse fold…

and the trickiness of balance, the complex reprisals,

the elegant breathing bright designs of life

xix. the jangling pie

Azure-winged Magpies

Mist and night-painted visions

now lifting this breeze—

glacial azure-winged magpies—

all splendid like Lake Louise.

xx. scorning jay

New Colorful Arrays

When life has been cold fallen leaves

of oak trees that held our Milky Way

all night, oh, then blissful thieves

who planted heaven’s pillars, blue jay

after blue jay, re-steal the prosaic

world of buried acorns from gloom…

They flourish their tails, all mosaic

and pixilated. Blue promises bloom

mid-air as sunlight blooms. Magician

birds, they imitate the hawk cry

as old wishes tremble in green fruition.

Dark soil and bright sky now ally…

Part stardust and most tattered flower—

we owe it to this forest planter;

her feathered refrains of power

recall the soul’s pounding enchanter.

Fill earth with heaven’s crooked pillars;

These branches blossom with endless songs.

xxi. heroun

Heron—

You are that part of blackened sky

That zigzags to shallow points

From feathered clouds.

You are stored in the closet of space

And are discovered among

The finest livery of the wind.

Because of you, light catches sea

By means of a trout just pierced,

Now folded over your lower beak,

Bitten back into the air. Who knows where

The sight of you will again bring

All elements together.

In that astounding eternal wild nest

Swaying somewhere within these

Autumn-pictured aspens, perhaps?

xxii. Loving Lapwings

xxiii. starling

F i r m a m e n t

(Orange airy light scatters

and regathers a million

constellations, all descended

and ascending: the most auroral

and nebulous and altogether

lovely intonated calculations

of criticality itself exulted

so as to translate gravity into

these evocative formations

of day’s opalescent congregated

blithe and elegiac starlings;

and the firmament becomes

one tremendous murmuration!)

xxiv. American Robin

American Robin

Cherith played in the yard

one deathless afternoon.

Her brother was climbing

down the ash tree

and they noticed a robin’s tune.

Now time evokes that novel song,

all cheeryup

and cherilee,

as familiar as used furniture

and beliefs of what could be.

And if she hears a robin

sing as she says amen,

then Cherith recalls

light’s tireless song

to smile at once again.

And when her brother sees

how endless are the skies,

then the robin’s

stirring notes

give him strength to eulogize.

xxv. Elanus lecurus

White-Tailed Kite: Elanus Lecurus

As haunting whalesongs fill the ancient waters,

so also the sight of you hovering

lifts high the hearts of all our sons and daughters

with scenes from ancient stories.

II.

Discovering you overwhelms our warring souls,

like Hur and Aaron holding up the hands of Moses.

III.

Oh, how your eyes are like earth’s reddest roses,

and thus your wondrous blazing gaze is flung

forth not unlike feared volcano flames,

though sphered like stars unto my tongue.

                               IV.
                            Unvanishing moment where oceans still confer
                      before the daytime moon reposes—
                                                      on you our lasting thoughts are hung
                         in praise that ceaselessly is sung.

xxvi. orlogge is of thropes lite

Actual Roosters

Within the pure quietness inside that bright pureness

from the rim of the sphere of all spheres, the rooster-

eyes of the heart—arisen to likewise unveil your soul’s

myriad-colored king above the king of the serpents’

king—can assassinate nullity and rekindle all splendor

and song, and the same cockerels that guard heaven

and earth’s aura will awaken eternal sentience without

any recreated woe. Love this light; bow, dance before it.

xxvii. The sparwe

xxviii. clepeth forth the leves newe

Nightingale

Picture the nightfall’s silvery d I s c l o s u r e s

And hear the unrelenting song of light itself.

Heart-rending, unending—so picture our universe.

Eternal is this nightingale. It has always given

freely, c l o s I n g e v e r y s t o t m’s d e s p a i r

inside a song. So, a w a y all fears are driven.

Every horrid war is ended within

the nightingale’s song, which is the song

of songs, the ending and the beginning wherein

the moonflower opens and the sun ascends

over and over, once again then once again—

like the repetitious prayers of friends.

Lovers make more love, and love is always long,

because love sings a nightingale’s Song.

xxix. swalme

Swift Barn Swallows

Quietly, the barn swallows r e l e a r n e d to whir and sing

just what the over ripened Great Eclipse

engendered as their feelings; so, in

this morning’s rain they’ve worked high to make

us think what raises our sun each morning—rethink

what summer made for us delicious ripe:

delight in the blood moon, the shade, new night.

Weep how the moon became a barn swallow’s

eye; blue heights became the swallow’s mind;

her September breast beheld why

all the rivers rush and swell. Old trees

fight so strongly, and swallows teach the leaves

…a falling flight.

And can you make your prayer like autumn air?

and number today those barn swallows right there,

in dawn’s will to warble and thus stay?

One by one, the swallows chirp all day,

turning worlds into the beauty of

that nightfall’s mystic crown of lunar light.

xxx. Eyes Like Doves

Your Eyes are Like Doves, Nancy Susan

Beyond this elemental veil of my soul, within the

ocean mountain of your mind, as much as

we contrive from dirt and artful oil or iron—whether

time or all wherever will not yield to

hope, insomuch as love—we can ascertain love still,

preordain myrrh dances, and whatever.

II.

John J. Audubon painted what he could find. Inasmuch

as he delighted in birds, he would paint.

When nature is believed to have reached her greatest beauty,

she smiles with even more beauty. That’s

what he felt about their brilliant changing metallic hue.

And that’s what I love and know about you.

xxxi with his angeles clothes brighte

The Indian Peafowl

Glowing around our polyptych heart’s imploring,

and through the window of our mind,

the peacock shines. Yes, a water-beam is pouring

over the dark desert mountain, towards humankind,

with that red of sacred light. Subjective halos

shine. We, in our distances, find

what as children we perceived re-clothed in rainbows,

hear now is being crested and crowned—

that time itself is what all perfumed wisdom knows.

And his gyroid green feathers spread out all around

The heavens. The iridescent blue eyes of his

Shimmering train search earth while each person is found.

xxxii. Great Sages

xxxiii. The wakere goos

xxxiv cokkou

The Black-billed Cuckoo

Is the rain crow hiding from uneasy unfallen rain?

Does it love the heavy spring rain much more

than winds presiding to shake loose winged seeds from hemlock trees?

Can it move with it’s cu-cu-cu June’s sky?

Please open the window wider (or else I think I’ll die).

Let in the clouds, our view, those worried bees.

She’s impossible to find, but we surely can’t ignore

how pines that held each snowfall can’t constrain

her splendor within their green braided branches, can’t restore

secrets redivulged above the former breeze.

So, let’s find her tail; it’s like a silk dress from Shanghai.

She’ll magically ordain you with her ringed-in-yellow eye.

xxxv. The drake

Sheldon Lake

Huge unbelievably high clouds

sometimes cooled the summer days at Sheldon

Lake. You often took rocks from

the path, rephrasing life’s frustrations in lovely

ways. Skipping every shape six

or even seven times, you always praised

the beauty of any weather, and gazed

up through the white and Peachleaf Willows

while you walked so hopefully with doubt

through countless unimaginable glooms.

II.

Life is like billions of difficult

and beautiful ballets, and hope is always

dancing quietly like a ballerina.

This morning you stopped to get a picture of

some mallards dabbling by the pier, where

painter’s bring their children out to fish.

They might have heard you humming all those hymns

that overpowered all life’s wrongs. Sometimes

I almost dare to sing such wondrous songs.

xxxvi. The stork

xxxix loving, loving

Goldfinches

A whatever . . . wow, madrone tree hillside by

The gray-green valley, (where / only seconds ago,

All clinched in fanged so sad-inflicting fog), was, oh,

Freed again into the splendorous tints of another

Day. How? What tree? That one / there, branched

And swerved like bright orange rivers, leaved

All polished-breezed and alighted by dints of

Three bright yellow songs: focal points of

God-is-love, stelliform spears, visions lauding,

Praising new cheerful daylong supplications from

The vanished starlight, rays of early noon that flit

And sing again; whose existence, like Sunlight's

Always uncaged situation, makes Scotch thistle--

Poppies and every crucial wild wildflower--grow.

xxxvii. cormerants

xxxviii. raven wis

xl. A Heart’s Clarion

A Heart's Clarion

You, song--you--you co-ordain

(With every re-brightening afternoon

Once thunderclouded lightening flash)

Even the outlining leaves, now

Swinging open, and swinging open

And swinging open (with such blessing!)

The passage of sudden light to

The also inner-branchings of this

Lovely tree that keeps re-existing

In blinding seconds, together with

Persistent birdsong-as-powerful-as

Any given storm--and, therefore,

Henceforth, more wonderfully powerful;

You, Song--you co-ordain, and

Un-thunderbolt with brotherly

Rainfall and springtime stream

My memories of home-with-its-

Own-songs, home with its own

Fir tree and apple and cherry

Trees--filled, unusually, with similar

Songbirds with, yes, always

Their very own variations of May,

Along with our souls' instrumental

Prayers meant to be heard, watchfully,

Only by everysingle life that lives to hear.

xli. Ring-billed gulls

Untitled

Warming each other's cold arms and cold faces,
and giving each other hot kisses, we
were enveloped in the ancient mineral-

scented spring rain.

You outsaw the circling

ring-billed gulls; we swayed

and the sea unclothed the air--sheet of rain

by sheet of rain--until the sky

was cloudless. I outcried those very gulls--

even while they sailed up there in the

bright choir loft of space.

The momentous always

glistens, always reappears, whenever

I feel you smile. "Thus saith thy love and

thus saith my love; thus proclaims

the eternal cries of the ring-billed gulls,

carried by whatever winds to lovers

and to the lonely and the very sad."

We rebehold the glaced wings of a myriad

ring-billed gulls, reassembling the stars

by shimmering again above the falling

and rising moons and ocean waves and suns.

Stay with me--

stay with me--at least by song.

. . .