The pleasure of order
dissolves
into the pleasure
of the mess
If you see something
it’s not a gift
it’s a request
To know
who is with you
in the current
The least sand-
piper
the greater
yellowlegs
To be continuous
is inhuman
It is inhuman
to be a specimen
to locate
your picture
in someone else’s
book
The common
snipe
the chimney
swift: black-
and white-throated
The ovenbird
says teacher
teacher
The easiest song
is not “America”
The pine grosbeak
is really pink
really a finch
I fix upon
the wood duck
as if it were a button
and I an open velvet mouth
One
and more than one
Aggregate is
a kind of stone
that describes itself
Slate-colored junco
A mind can cut through
almost anything
A god with whom
you’ll never win
Bobolink, meadowlark
You have to
hide your love away
like the hulk
or a flying nun
A capital letter
on the highest thing
An open secret
is neither one
This is what you see
flying over California
in a habit
Protestors surrounding
the police
who are trying
to surround them
This is how
the crow flies
This is where I kick
what I need out of reach
while I scroll
for a song
The flourishing
bowerbird
builds its
enlightenment
A screech owl has
no nest in particular
of paper
or of brush
Struck by lightning
a man’s heart
becomes a new thing
a proper location
for a needle and thread
Even a girl can make
a house or a coffin
out of cardboard
and string
a nail, a piece of cork
Who can think
of immortality
The whip-poor-will
zippering
its evening dress
The passage
not the outcome
Magpie, kingfisher
As seen from outer space
the greatest poem
looks like nothing
at all
The part of living
that is forgiveness
is not continuous
I don’t want
to hate the cowbird
Even Charlton Heston
saying Sweet Jesus
while he contemplates
the stars
among the falconers
of the Magreb
where we may or may not be
on location at this time
flying in the shadow
that is “only the beginning”
Here I am passing
a semi full of chickens
This is me buying
an expensive machine
then trying to teach it
with my voice
how to be human
on our way
to the doctor
by the king of glory
church
I miss you
as if I’m talking
to the moon’s sweet
bitterness
to the tree on fire
beneath the central
flyway
I know it’s
out there
sleepless
as a pigeon
or a dove
