Cracking my thumb with headphones on, I can just picture the eye of diagonal lady flitting in my direction curiously and gone, that's all. Kid with Red-Wing hat and Beats by Dr. Dre sits across from me *** there's nowhere left to sit, poor kid. Doesn't know me. Manifests that social anxiety for age-the-sames-or-similars. He's texting, avoids eye contact, not that I'm looking, nope nu uh not that I'm looking. Lady with flashing visi-light walks on bus as half-hedge is lit half-hedge is dark silhouette, bus lights. It's dark and rainy. Windows pretty fogged and bogged in dirt and smog and oh my God I feel the song it's verses on it's verses long it's words so vertical!
Redwing looks a little nerved, blanked, searching for saliva salvation in his Beats by Dr. Dre
texts again, I looked uh huh I looked I did this time I looked.

Bus bumps corner cruuuisin', aren't we a speedy bunch?
Cracked my thumb again old man diagonal looks I'm sorry. I'm sorry too. Girl with blonde streaks could be years old could be decades, probably a decade .7, getting off bus behind former diagonal lady, she'll forget my thumb you'll see. Miss her. No sir. Redwing sees me see him turns to look to stop request, uh he didn't look he didn't he's gone, sitting in seat ahead now, Redwing hat cooped in Beats by Dr. Dre, red Van shoes poking out till friend apparitions seat next to him, hi! Redwing takes off Redwing hat and chats apparition, turns hat back wards, forwards, nerved I bet, nerved I can tell don't pretend oh you're fine!

Stops coming so bye I'll talk to you later

special thanks to my parents for making all this possible.

LET the crows go by hawking their caw and caw.
They have been swimming in midnights of coal mines somewhere.
Let 'em hawk their caw and caw.

Let the woodpecker drum and drum on a hickory stump.
He has been swimming in red and blue pools somewhere hundreds of years
And the blue has gone to his wings and the red has gone to his head.
Let his red head drum and drum.

Let the dark pools hold the birds in a looking-glass.
And if the pool wishes, let it shiver to the blur of many wings, old swimmers from old places.

Let the redwing streak a line of vermillion on the green wood lines.
And the mist along the river fix its purple in lines of a woman's shawl on lazy shoulders.

First person singular prohibited. In order
to be more crow.
War! war! war! war! war!

Then there's that lowland wetland bird
around the stunted red pines crying
Birdy, birdy, birdy, birdy.

Hear the redwing blackbird chirring
Her, her, her... she
as one might expect, Spring.

Words for birds
since they're inaccessible. Aim
binoculars left, right, up, down, missing every time.

At the piano recital
Aaron made the penguins run, run, run, not waddle,
from a hungry polar bear!

Everything passes, even a massacre,
but birds outlast cars
and words like chemical and holocaust.

Woodpecker climbs oak,
Connecticut.
Not one neighbor heard the knocking.

The voice of a pewee
whose nest has fallen out of the tree.
Oh my! Oh me!

What did the wood thrush sing
that summer evening
teaching its young thrush meanings?

Wild grapes grow on vines
From the trees next to the Fields
A bunch of us harvested the yield
Purple fingered in buckets

A Galvanized Antique
Wash Tub on Wheels
With the Hose at the Bottom
Filled up with The Make

A log of Firewood was used
To smash the grapes to pulp
As the Juice Drained out
Collecting in a  Bucket

Pounding the pulp up
Taking Turns, Arms Ached
In the Back Yard, Sun Baked
As we plied our Log to Make

In the Kitchen 20 Lbs of Sugar
And gallons of Water Boiled
Watched and Stirring Constantly
Till the Syrup Batch Roiled

A 50 Gallon Oak Wine Keg
Prepared a Wooden Peg
A Hole drilled through
Coiled copper Pipe put to...

An ancient wooden Spigot
Gently tapped into place
The warm Syrup is poured
Yeast Added and then Grape

The Plug with the copper Pipe
Tapped into the Top of the keg
Coiled up Copper Stretches Down
To water, in a Redwing Crock

Halloween party we
Tapped some pitchers
A Light and fruity Vin
Sweet Pallette of wine

Christmas we Tapped
Merry Pitchers to toast
A Fine Full bodied Note
It made a Merry toast

For New Years we
Tapped the Last
The Marc of Dregs
Potent as Sweet Sherry

The Winter Wine
Tasted Fine
With Merry Toasts
For a Good Time

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.

Madrigals of March
echo throughout the Port lake backcountry
with river dancer vibrations , lapping waters ,
sashaying marsh grass along her fertile shore
Uplands of live oak , elm , birch and sycamore
Shadows of raptors and herons alight brown pasture in
evening performances , evergreen seedlings helicopter
into the unknown , bass note bullfrogs , light breezes
chaperone a gaggle of redwing blackbirds bound for
sweet home* ...