Four Poems
DARK-EYED JUNCO
caught in a still
picture of moss
falls and creeks
eyes take us
to the sound
in branch tips
the trees make
as they bend, twist
& whip the blue
stands of red
scaly pine sway
to and fro
dead snags
creak, unlock
a silver tooth
fox calls
chainsaws
owl voice
the trees
make speeches
in their bark
the green
new life
through which
white tailed
junco soldiers
move quietly
MELTING
I could smell it, I could smell the spring on the air
a smell of wet earth, carried across state lines
always wanting to put a bite in
as spring rains hammer away snow
let’s pretend we’re in Antarctica
and sleep through the singing of birds
that in itself is forgivable
when your heart beats so hard
you want to wear it down
our gods arrive in a cloud
what’s hard wrought remains
owls getting ready to prowl
as the snow tunnels appear
CLANGULA
long tail
formerly old squaw
dives with the quickness of thought
into the heavy green wave
life at the boundary, phase changes
white to dark cheek patch
red band marks the beak
near and far, lifted gone
wave after wave after wave
clanging of the sea bell
you are in the world
ow, ow, owal-ow
and wiggle through
surfing, chasing tubes, tailing
out — ‘south-southerly’ ?
a ‘bone’ at the breast
EQUALLY
“You will count them all in,
you will stay in the midst of them,
you will know no law, you will hear them
in the narrow seas”
Charles Olson, Maximus Letter 14
the moment of one
is not enough, & yet
all undoes, lets me
awaken, agash
before flowers bud
break out, and green
retakes the land
the bare unknown
innumerable
facts are hidden
in plain sight
sparrows flitting
in last year’s leaves
touch a nerve
share me a song
and I’ll go quiet
as a two-note
chorus bends
the time sweetly
sews me to you
not taken slowly
red rimmed in
yellow, blood sky
of shanties rocks
the exposure
fakes a capital
offense thickened
at the cut
rambunctious
blue jays, doves
do otherwise
layered grunking
in open water
the crocuses push
faster than forward
three other land
scapes uncenter
the heart, some
are fake but all
the songs are ok
blackbirds! free
the social canvas
crows, saw me
in half, sparrows
strike the house
lit for a branch
into blue glass
phantom sky
unearthed, curls
the resurrection
is spare, some
vacant pastures
eliminate time
one chorus, one
dance occupies
all of space
Jonathan Skinner founded and edits the journal ecopoetics, which features creative-critical intersections between writing and ecology. His poetry collections include Birds of Tifft (BlazeVOX, 2011) and Political Cactus Poems (Palm Press, 2005). Skinner has published critical essays on Charles Olson, Ronald Johnson, Lorine Niedecker, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Bernadette Mayer, translations of French poetry and garden theory, essays on bird song from the perspective of ethnopoetics, and essays on horizontal concepts such as the Third Landscape and on Documentary Poetry. Currently, he is writing a book of investigative poems on the urban landscapes of Frederick Law Olmsted, and a critical book on Animal Transcriptions in contemporary poetry. He teaches in the Writing Program at the University of Warwick.