Pokeweed waits
underground, snow crusts
small greenish white flowers, leaves entire
and alternate, black berries
poisonous, ripe late.

Waits patiently past February
when the sun stays up in the sky more than January
and six more months after that
past the peepers keeping watch
for every passing dog or truck.

We await our time
or have had it, or are having it.
Body in slow, not precipitous, decline.
Expend ourselves on work and wine.
Percent of budget expended, year to date.

I heard a redwing this morning
who might have been choosing a nest site
holding the spot against chevrons from the south.
Choosing the best site, away from predators, near water,
in sight of seed and buds.

It happens that when the pokeweed fruit pokes out
the chicks were born, the fledglings flown
leaves already leathery
and the weather has the faintest
hint of January's cold snow hold.

It has been beautiful, late August, full moon
a million crickets following
a million fireflies in June,
a million May peepers. Immersed
in insect, amphibian cycles, I am a mammal, drugged,
crossing the road, car approaching
fast, unnoticed.

I would choose to die in late summer.
Why?
So that my wife would have autumn, intense,
to grieve by,
snowy bandages with which to bind the wound,
and spring to reawaken into.
Summer to remember that she's loved.

Silence of winter
distant from all but my ****** contacts
her bedroom nights
and day friends
memory of my independence vanishing dream
holding on to it, myself
knowing how love can hurt.

Its seduction of me, dissolving my man barriers
biologically, to procreate
or create a new personality, a deepening
humility, her womanhood hands.
Not giving in completely
touching sweetly
but staying strong.

Going into the winter to mark my trees
not flinching in the dark early morning
casting an eye cold as a telescope
moving inexorably
a part of nature, insect, star.
This is how I'll love
and live with her.

The white-breasted nuthatch
upside down the ancient bole.
If it has no soul, neither do I.

Pencils criss-crossed on the desk,
sticks tangled on the ground.
Oblong lenticels, yellow stars.

We try to worship the divine
in our ****** partners. They **** and sweat diurnally
and fear their deaths. But the abstract

God has also died. He lied to say he was
eternal. Earth must burn, universe grow cold.
Old field species become ornamentals.

Mosquitoes prey on us, and black flies.
The body decays, and this is what you come
to love. And the ants that carry it away.

This morning, the profusion of species
contents me. The temperate zone is warm, late May.
The posture of that bird is good to emulate.

In Cities in Flight
transformations are chronicled over generations.
It can make us cry
out for the genius occurring
now and in our past. How
the unseen, unknown participant
was made known to himself
through devotion to those outside himself. He
guides his city
into space.

So, the father and the teacher
guide the family and the student
through the close spaces of knowledge
and obligation. And perform
the history that surrounds them.
Good actors and directors,
philosophers and physicists,
soldiers and foresters.

Today
steam rose from the asphalt
because the sun
has arrived in place, powerful, equinoxal
as the human song
that receives it.

Two big deer
       Lope cautiously
             Off the open road.

Two crows
       Fly low
             Above the Oswegatchie.

Frank Bassett
forester since '57
marks a stand of maple and black cherry
for selective cutting. His actions today
will be noted
by another forester, also acting alone,
in the 21st century.

New York City
in a froth of creativity
Pacino and Sheen in Julius Caesar,
Sonny Rollins at Town Hall,
films opening, one
that portrays the flamboyant style
and dedication
of a barrio public school teacher.

You cannot act alone.
You must belong
in your heart
to the flight humanity makes in Spring, north
toward wild flowers
in geese chevrons.

One leaf falls
holographic illusion
across time the Terminator travels
to shape Sarah Connors' destiny.
Heart attack
a common enough destiny
as common as young men discussing girls' ****.
The Constitution
is the document we refer to, the lodestone
to correct course and not go crazily astray.
Lose all purpose beyond ******, child *** and food hording.
Illuminated manuscripts
in a dark age, tape decks remind us of our voice
our communal voice
Supremes and Fred Astaire
the silken wail.

I lie alone in the night
its sensuality makes the best sense
it does or does not clarify the day
of classes or clients or chain saws
whatever fever may have infected me at the moment
a fever to achieve access to foreign films while living in the
      mountain community of Schroon Lake
the fever to instruct the American people how to apply ideals
      and practicalities of Constitution to international
      relationships
the fever not to die today, to maintain consciousness just one
      more season (and one more after that).

Anyway, what is being discussed -
the finiteness of one life -
or perhaps existence continues in another dimension, on
      another frequency
no owl hoots
but other purpler and indigo occurrences
with other purposes
as incomprehensible and wonderful as these purposes
to choke on a cherry pit or nuclear bomb
to wail our wail together
each individual identifiable hoot and wail, loud laugh and
      suppressed scream
one orbicular chant, humanity, from India to Indiana
complete, one sing.

I feel this way
searching for my place among you
childless, but a child among children
obeying or not obeying the speed limit
as my hormones permit
everywhere among brothers, the sisters among sisters
the races together exterminating the last rhinoceros and
      preserving its genes at the zoological society
my species attacking entire rain forests, temperate forests
      and boreal forests
like the engraver beetle in the red pine's inner bark.
Thus, I occasionally cheer the Terminator
cheer the machine and neutron bomb
even in the face of individual heroics, the male and female face
their physical love, tender and violent
I don't know what I want.

It could be simple
as this headache.
Not to despair
just to care enough to think clearly and accept 10,000 years
      of history.
Not to hate those in authority
humor is the only remedy
yellow ape teeth chimping in the glass death face
and ritual is remedy
a death song
and one for planting
and one for the beginning of loving.

Aspen, ponderosa pine, blue spruce
pink glacier-cut rock, scree, ravens
gray jay, peregrine falcon, hawk.

We climb to 11,000 feet in three days,
camp at Lawn Lake for three days. Alpine
tundra. Elk, bighorn sheep, marmot.

Tileston Meadows, ticks in grass,
rock face of Mummy Mountain.
Binoculars show pink cracks in gray rock.

Stoke gas stoves, play cards.
Boil water, set up tarps, lay out
sleeping bags, hang bear bag.

Watch crescent moon slice into
Fairchild Mountain. Moonlight
makes a mosque of the rocks.

Yellow aspen splash in dark green
spruce and pine. Gullies where streams
slash during spring snowmelt.

One rock, feather or flower worth
more than money. Need no wallet,
keys. Just clothes for fur.

All day climb toward saddle to see
what's on other side. One hawk floating
among bare peaks and over valleys.

Wind at 13,000 feet
turns to sleet. Turn back from peak,
take boulders two at a time down.

Winter moves into mountains.
Then we fly from Denver to New York
where it's still summer.