Pacific Wren

A noisy brown ping pong ball jumped
up from the trail and velcroed itself
to the trunk of a Douglas Fir. It cocked

its head to best keep an eye on me.
One earlier lay still on the path.
The scavengers hadn't found it yet.

I didn't kneel and use forceps as some
do to examine its final meal. It lay on
a trail--why not suspect the trail?

Generally wrens stay near the ground where
the food is. Where a sword fern scares
the hawk away. When I play the wren’s

song, sometimes it comes. The song
of rubber tires speeding through gravel
isn’t food is it? It’s not a mate singing.

One horse rider attached a jingly bell
to her horse’s halter because on this
trail once they came upon a bear.

I looked up to the crow
on the power line.
There's dignity in silence
we thought.

Previously, me and crows.

We don’t stop aging in winter

In the morning shower when my brain
is clean and fresh, I divert the tumble
of my thoughts away from Jack the night
my father died. This memory is warm
but the next? How dark and cold, and
how slippery might it be? I leave it
lodged where ground slides into fog
this dark compressed day of winter
and lift my shoulders from their crouch.

Night after night, practicing this skill,
gradually gave me back my sleep.
It isn’t looking at the world through
rose colored glasses. It isn’t looking.

The Jay Calls

Birds erupt outside my hotel window.
Cardinal, wren, robin.
Yack Yack Yack. All aflutter.

Is it about to rain or has Jack returned from nowhere?

He used to stay in the canopy riding the waves
wind and currents presented him,
but the leaves are still against the sky.

Was there ever anything more beautiful
than his sea soaked eyelashes when he tired
and came back dripping to his towel?

The jay calls.

So thirsty he was. Still I can’t look to see his face.

Settled

Jack's tombstone wears the oak's mantel:

lichens rust the pink granite; tannins set

his name and the chiseled teak pattern

in relief. His view is good. The trees cast

long stark shadows down the green slope.

A jogger in a red jacket makes his way

along the drive. I expect a blue jay to perch

atop the stone but they accept Jack's claim.

Together the robins and blue jays watch me

listen as the Gladstone passes this good spot.

Passaic Headwaters

I came here a lot with Jack after he died.
Now I’m back for the wood thrush I suppose,
and the gnats and mosquitoes.

I take my time along the path. My phone and I
listen for birds. A woodpecker drums
to tell his mate he’s near. My guess a flicker.

Where the sun breaks through the canopy
the smell of warm earth envelops me.
I feel the plants' breath. It's almost visible.

Fronds and leaves and limbs extend.
Some itchy, some sticky. Some burn.
The trail cuts back and the headwaters

are suddenly as loud as a boy splashing down
a ledge or two then quieting into the flowing creek.
I find his spot. It isn’t hard; it’s where sneakers

get soaked through and through. I kneel. Feel
the cool stone through my jeans. Surely spring rains
and snow melt years ago carried him to sea.

A blue jay calls from deep in the leaves. Muffled.
No barking. No giggling. No chasing fireflies.
A common jeering blue jay almost makes me cry.

He calls again.

Silence

Around 4am, maybe earlier, I hear God.

Noah. Noah it’s going to rain.

Build an ark.

Build it big enough to hold your animals

so your herds and flocks won’t drown

when the waters rise.

That voice is hard to ignore.

Noah didn’t. I couldn't.

That voice which every father and mother

ever born has heard sounds tonight

more like space junk falling from heaven,

or the wing beats a bat makes

as it escapes a laboratory.

It sounds like pension funds exhausted;

the market, our currency, our faith in each other,

all the fabrications we base our life on, collapsing.

If I can catch my breath

and if my ears stop ringing

maybe I can fall back to sleep

before the squall line crests the hill,

before rain and sleet whip the glass,

before the levee breaks and vigilantes

kick in the front door. If I started now

I could not fell enough trees.