in the quiet behind the quiet we can't help but look ourselves for words
to say everything and so say nothing so long would it take. words whispered
or screamed twixt stones on lawns that slope. prayers pushed by lips into
the arborine darkness or deadhead thicket where once remains scattered by
wind. mind erratic like the scars on the land. if you believe in cold fingers
and the pressure pastoral. can you believe once a glacier slept here. what to
that weight is this in hand now, the katabatic dirt conveyed. ulular howl
of graveside women rippling the air after mouths are long shut, banished not
by swan's wing lapis ring jar of herbs or soothing salve. how tokens betoken help
but not return. the darkness wolverine. when murphy died i watched the priest
bid whispering his father move the yankee cap from one casket's end
to the other, five foot long and bottomless. when the boys drove over the edge
of the quarry and returned on the news and t-shirts i called my mother who screamed
don't say that to me. nineteen years gone longer than here and still those screams
ring like lapis like sundog like ripples beneath the swan. where once were straits
the minks still cling to the fading dream of wetlands. on starling's coat behind his
beak wheels every constellation. somewhere in time man wears for his own the head
of a lonely bison. he is singing, singing, singing, singing, singing, singing.
###
Chuck McKeever is a teacher, writer, and naturalist in Detroit. He's usually looking up at what the crows are doing.