The lake wants to still
and reflect the blue sky.

Why does the sky breathe
and disturb it so much?

high in the sky

smoke from the great fires
far south of here

yellows the light

look in the shadows

low between the firs
the dark places against which
you see sunlight

catch the faint rain

Rising

Above the treetops

two hawks

or maybe falcons

fly south with purpose

straight into the setting winter sun.

They join the others

become crows

their black breasts lit gold.

Lost Word

A rustle in the canopy too muffled for a squirrel.
I find red in my binoculars. A crest.
A pileated woodpecker resolves from the green silence.
A black mask pulled across her eyes and cheeks
makes her bill appear even longer.

Pileated is not a metaphor;
pileum is a synonym for cap.

A whisper.
Her mate settles on a nearby branch.
A red stripe extends a Joker’s open gash.
They don’t migrate. Year round
they stay and stay together.

Quieter still.
In the woods beyond, leaves.

Flight Call

A still day in early August.
I’m cool in the shade of an old maple
on a good bench to sit for birds.

Chickadees are chatting
but they can’t hold my interest.
Spring is over. All the singing

for territory, for a mate, for your brood

is done, but I don’t want to leave.

Nowhere will ease the anniversary.

A careening train of boys on bikes
comes skidding down the path.
A junco bolts.

The boys are breaking rules
but they easily avoid hitting me

and go on as if I'm not here.

If they were a year or two older,
I’m sure I would have felt again
that familiar fever spike of fury.

I wait the minutes for the birds to calm
and try to recall which have a flight call.
I missed Jack's.

I am still angry a week later.
Just ask her who lives with me
how I endure without his song.

Even as I lift my Face to Rain

No matter how hard

I try to convince myself

that beyond that spot of water

is the Orient way west

past Hurricane Ridge

across the rolling Pacific.

That bit of water

I see down the gloomy street

under the gloomy sky

is the lake not the sound

teeming with salmon.

Will not Fly

All the talk about a shady picnic bench and a slight
breeze keeping gnats at bay, is it about birds
or my personal comfort? The sun’s been up for hours.
I sip coffee. I do not slosh around cold wetlands
before dawn cracks wide open, stalking noisy wrens
and blackbirds and waterfowl of various types,
nor am I stingy with butter. Just the other day I told Hilary
I wanted to spot baby crows. Baby crows must be big,
or we’d have noticed. The mob of crows on the front lawn,
the sidewalk, on the power lines running through red maples,
the fledglings must be right in front of us this time of year.
Is this poem a way of sharing the daily banalities
the way cliff swallows do, effecting a relationship?
Or that pair of crows, now, on a limb halfway up a cedar,
one is squawking so much the other goes flying. The one
left behind cawing, cawing. It does not leave its branch;
it will not fly. Is its beak a tad smaller? Smoother?
Caw! This loudmouth picks at lichen. Not finding
what it wants it inches forward, lifting a wing to find
its balance. It shouts Mother! She damn well better get back
with some choice bit of lunch and feed me! Father!
All that time right in front of me. If I were dressed in black
feathers and you could see light refracting sometimes brown,
sometimes violet blue; if my crow’s feet were obscured

by feathers, if you weren’t one of us could you tell us apart?