It is real work not to perform a fable.
— Natalie Diaz
I’d rather wake
every morning into silence
into nothingness
not rise to a script
someone’s expectation
a show me your . . .
no, all I am
is what I may do today
what by dark can dissipate
lightning bolt
lightning bugs
there, & there, & there
a sunny warm day, glints of dusk
through tall weeds
groundhog ambles
sniffs & is sniffed, rubs & is rubbed
if she could speak she might praise
this wealth of unmowed green
these safe acres where once an eager
beagle rutted
groundhog’s unaware of
the old woman peering through
binoculars, the black cat against
a pollen-dusted window screen
he comes home, the headache
gone, ten staples, what happens next
is I sleep through the night, I find
I can read a book, pages & pages
without waking from the continuous
dream, what happens next? I remember
to go outside, to lift carry pile rocks
when the piles merge I’ll have a wall
my weeds are four feet high
undaunted by drought, yellow & white
orange & lavender bloom, the trees
decked, my cart path bowered
grasses brimming with grain
groundhog homeboy the digging fool
adds a back door near the barn
where the chicken house stood
let’s have no more story
instead scuff soil, discover seed
twice daily I water the field of sod
a few green spears rise from wilted
clumps, so what if I wake glum?
make the bed before it gets away
through the crystal the sky says gray
the cat says purr, another day
how long can the barn swallow
leave her eggs before they’re cold?
twelve-tone birds fly up over down
house finch, goldfinch, phoebe
a lot to say about daily nothing
three swallows hatch, great blue
lifts from the river, shuttered
from sight by summer’s veiling
one turkey mines corn stubble
mid-June & not yet plowed
where’s the farmer? where’s
the turkey’s flock? one kernel
leads to another, a bluebird box
unmowed wetland cleaves
the acre, daytime typology
midfield a great branched maple
under a plank bridge across a gully
paw & claw marks in milk-colored mud
long curving swipes on the trail
rotten tree trunks shredded for grubs
torn fibers rust red, zest yellow
bark ripped from roots to bear-height
bare trunk scratched & exposed
ash borer’s D-shaped holes
robins bound from branch to earth
woodpeckers drum, a sunlit glade
we nearly missed — John tells me
I don’t scan, I must forgo speech
let the woods speak, maple & oak
popple & beech, moss mounds
top-40 bird song, high middle low
yet no maestro, no black tie & tails
when I itch, everything balloons
when I hike, everything camoflages
when I read, every letter mimes an ant
when I look, everything & everyone are here
