I don't know

why there is dusk to dawn,

grass on my lawn,

why a king beats a pawn,

or why the wasp

dies when it stings.

but I know a redbird

when it sings.



I don't know

what I have in my hand,

why a soldier takes the command,

why love should be banned,

whether I'm outside

or if I belong.

but I can recall

the redbird's song.



I can't say

what's nice or mean,

to freeze in winter,

to flourish in spring.

I can't shout

or cry

or do these marvelous things,

but I notice

when the redbird spreads its wings.

KEEP a red heart of memories
Under the great gray rain sheds of the sky,
Under the open sun and the yellow gloaming embers.
Remember all paydays of lilacs and songbirds;
All starlights of cool memories on storm paths.
  
Out of this prairie rise the faces of dead men.
They speak to me. I can not tell you what they say.
  
Other faces rise on the prairie.
  They are the unborn. The future.
  
Yesterday and to-morrow cross and mix on the skyline
The two are lost in a purple haze. One forgets. One waits.
  
In the yellow dust of sunsets, in the meadows of vermilion eight o'clock June nights ... the dead men and the unborn children speak to me ... I can not tell you what they say ... you listen and you know.
  
I don't care who you are, man:
I know a woman is looking for you
and her soul is a corn-tassel kissing a south-west wind.
(The farm-boy whose face is the color of brick-dust, is calling the cows; he will form the letter X with crossed streams of milk from the teats; he will beat a tattoo on the bottom of a tin pail with X's of milk.)
  
I don't care who you are, man:
I know sons and daughters looking for you
And they are gray dust working toward star paths
And you see them from a garret window when you laugh
At your luck and murmur, "I don't care."
  
I don't care who you are, woman:
I know a man is looking for you
And his soul is a south-west wind kissing a corn-tassel.
  
(The kitchen ******* the farm is throwing oats to the chickens and the buff of their feathers says hello to the sunset's late maroon.)
  
I don't care who you are, woman:
I know sons and daughters looking for you
And they are next year's wheat or the year after hidden in the dark and loam.
  
My love is a yellow hammer spinning circles in Ohio, Indiana. My love is a redbird shooting flights in straight lines in Kentucky and Tennessee. My love is an early robin flaming an ember of copper on her shoulders in March and April. My love is a graybird living in the eaves of a Michigan house all winter. Why is my love always a crying thing of wings?
  
On the Indiana dunes, in the Mississippi marshes, I have asked: Is it only a fishbone on the beach?
Is it only a dog's jaw or a horse's skull whitening in the sun? Is the red heart of man only ashes? Is the flame of it all a white light switched off and the power house wires cut?
  
Why do the prairie roses answer every summer? Why do the changing repeating rains come back out of the salt sea wind-blown? Why do the stars keep their tracks? Why do the cradles of the sky rock new babies?

A day and then a week passed by:
  The redbird hanging from the sill
Sang not; and all were wondering why
It was so still—
When one bright morning, loud and clear,
Its whistle smote my drowsy ear,
Ten times repeated, till the sound
Filled every echoing niche around;
And all things earliest loved by me,—
The bird, the brook, the flower, the tree,—
Came back again, as thus I heard
    The cardinal bird my word

And though our lives move on and our days continue to be filled with the life we had all once left behind, we still remember. And though we wake up each morning with a new crowed of people to share our breakfast with, we still remember. Etched into our minds like those three numbers we held so dear as a symbol of our freedom and identity. Those three numbers that separated you enough to show ones independence, but connected you with a community of people who forever would fill every waking (and sometimes sleeping) moments of your life. These three numbers, coupled with a key, representing a time of transition from parental curfews, sober nights, and childish antics to a life of frivolous and naked moments. Passing into a time where the only sober though one had was that approaching deadline and getting everyone home safe. A time where basketball games, endless games of cards, crazy dance parties, shower time, movie nights, redbird pizza runs, *** talks, burning frat houses, fights with floor 8, board games, and multiple YOUTUBE sensations took precedence over whatever was due the next day. And though our nights sometime met the light of day; we continued in our ways knowing each morning when we awoke the day was ours and would be filled with people who would make every moment spectacular. So with our new found life consuming us we ignored the grains as they fell towards a time when the life we had come to know and love would be thrown into a whirlwind of tears, hugs and goodbyes. But that day has come and gone; and though promises were made and dates set, we still can’t help to remember those three numbers and those people who made them more then just a room number. And though those days are gone and we consider our selves grown, we can’t help but cling to childish moments where friendships were forged and long lasting bonds made by a simple acceptance button found on our social portals. A bond that we now hold to for dear life as a means to keep one another connected. Connected to those people who became our life line in times of good and bad; those same people who we shared the good and bad moments with and knew we could turn to no matter what. Those same people whose lives we would put in front of ours and bend over backwards for no matter the cost or how empty our wallets may seem. And even when we found our selves counting quarters and estimating how many loads we could run, we always knew we could count on the person across the hall or right next door to fill that half hour until our whites were done. We laughed, and we cried, we made nick names for each other and threw up in each others arms. We watch each other run around naked, made never ending “that’s what she said jokes,” and maybe kissed a few people we never thought we could. And though nights got out of hand and feels hurt here or there, regret is something none of us feel. For regret is an emotion that holds no place between people whose moments with one another were made priceless because of how embarrassing or stupid we acted. Stupid, embarrassing moments that we have come to cherish and hold close to our hearts in the hopes to keep those people we refer to as our kin with us when distance challenges our very bonds. Moments that cannot be duplicated, remade, imitated, or passed off as a normal Saturday afternoon; but rather remembered and someday share with our kids and grandkids as they move in for their first year of college. And when our kids and grandkids are overcome with emotion and come to us for advice about conquering the college scene, we can say from the depths of our hearts that the people they meet in college will forever change their life and make them a better person. Those same people whom I could never replace, and can’t wait to embrace as brother and sister when the next semester of ISU rolls around. :)

Autumn was an old Viennese street held up in sacrifice to the sky,
With burnt-song offerings that still see through the clouds, as they see through you.
His was cobbler craft of reed-winded flame for the foot in tune,
Amid the outsnuffed shopkeepers’ lights and the candlesmoke of midnight hours,  
Pulsing above the inner heart of the Ringstrasse
Of brass signs and paving stones, misted and mute.
His was the candelabra of wick-notes
Wanded through the windowed rooms of forested night.
His were those woods filled with doorways, bookcases, and stairs
And everything dim and warm with people, no longer there.

***

The winter sunlight played across the keyboard of crypted windows,
And in the muted under-roofs of ice and snow,
On one window, like a hand in whole rest,
The caramelized glass swallowed the flame-image of the stray redbird
And the black carriage wheels that passed.

In the long hallway of the Viennese flat,
One candle remained lit in the mouth of song.

Do dust bunnies have consciousness?
Does instinct guide them?
Instructing their best chance of survival
Is to hunker down,
Go out of sight,
Hide under a piece of furniture?
Will they survive & thrive in Dust Land,
Dust Land Planet Earth
Where cat hair is
“A sizeable constituency,”
So would say some latter day Machiavel’.
When spring comes, at last,
Will the minority Party
The Politburo in absentia,
Pick up on,
Comprehend the fact?
The red-red boffin
Goes beaucoup mnemonic, again.
“Wake up, wake up you sleepy head!
Get up, get out o' bed!
Cheer up! Cheer up!
The sun is red.
Live, love, laugh and be happy!”
The red-red-Redbird comes
Hammer & Sickle cell, again.

My heart hums melodies of distant birds...

Over yonder, below the big blue
A cardinal croons
A redbird misses you

Over yonder, below the big blue
A yellow bird cries
Warbling “woe is you”

Two birds dance
and skip, and trade in verse
While softly wishing, on the same wire they’d be perched

A dance to court,
Hopeful heartfelt flying nigh

But it’s a bluebird’s kiss
Whose cadence I wish were mine

evening comes by the lake
reflecting the cloud and trees
my mind also a mirror of all things

i saw the google car today
i hear the crane coarse cry
once and then again
he starts this time every night

on the dock
a man made four square thing
surrounded by its opposite
the water so unshaped unformed

a fish jumps at the flies
then another and another
there are countless ripples
too far away to hear but not to see

darker now
the redbird’s song joins in
that last of the day birds to sing before the dark

swallows in the air slide and swoop and glide

the crane again
each creature an instrument
singing to the dying day

but what about the google car
it drives itself you know
i called my aged mother and explained to her as i drove past it
amazing how the world is changing

the bullfrog has joined us now
and the bat replaces the swallow
darting ever here and there
i wish him luck since his meal is devouring me

but the google car
what is it devouring?
technology devouring man and nature

i sit here in the midst of wilderness
with my laptop, wifi card and cell phone
am i connected of just swallowed?

there is no car and driver any more
the car is the driver
or is it that the driver is the car?

the crane again
in the background the traffic of the interstate
so prevalent and ubiquitous that it seems to not exist

because everywhere and nowhere are the same
there can be no thing, no thought, no word
without something outside it to define it

and what defines us
our skin?
or are we now beyond that

with the laptop etc extending my reach
i can share all this right now
with just the click of a send button

but still something is missing
i wish a bag of bones were here
so we could talk

converse in that old fashioned way
like old men on the bench
outside a country store

what would we say, that bag of bones and i?
all this and more, much more
and there would be silence without discomfort
to punctuate the meaning of the words
outside to their inside
defining them

a tree frog joins the chorus
just for once
but i know he will not be able to resist
hearing again and again
how beautiful he sounds

night creatures now
my laptop screen am unresistable attraction
to the tiny bugs
beating themselves mercilessly against it

so dark now
i cannot see the keyboard
only the screen
and woe, i never was one to type
without looking at the screen

smashed a mosquito now
feeling so powerful

a star appears
but it is only a jet
coming my way

what is it bringing
to this cyborg scene
gobbling up the gas and air
heating up the globe

the night is so alive
sound increases
inversely proportioned to the light
bullfrog again

and now the first time cricket
or is it cicada
lying in the ground for all those years
waiting to be resurrected
like the spiritus mundi
slouching toward bethlehem to be born