#1
I wish I could read the poems the spiders write.
No, don’t tell me they don’t make poetry.
I can see it in the folds of their webs,
In the highways they exude from their own bodies
As they move from one place to another far away.
It is clear, but I cannot read them.
I only stumble inattentively into them.
Or the poems written in the fallen liquidambar leaves.
Whoever writes those meanings on the grass
Is full of delicacy and color
And has no trouble with hubris.
#2
Around here, except in winter, clouds are pretty rare.
When we get the chance
You would think we would study them carefully.
But no, their writings are universally ignored.
#3
I know the poems of the ants are in the ways they work together.
Even E.O Wilson himself could not convince me
They are not supple poets.
They are declarative and muscular in their verses.
They are passionate and detached at once.
Their poems are silent.
Human poets could learn volumes from them.
I am one who sleeps early,
So my fascination with astronomy
Is always nipped in the bud at ten.
Yet those stars are singers
And their poems are lyrics.
How many astrophysicists began
As listeners to the constellations?
How many warmed to the music,
How many to the words?
I can see the clouds’ poems are exquisite, like yesterday afternoon,
Full of white longing and wistfulness,
And, as always, transforming immediately
Into other phrases and softnesses.
(Do you think wind is the writer?)
(Do you think hawks are the readers?)
#4
Lucky for me, most birds prefer day-recitals.
By the time the orange blossoms are in full bloom,
The mockingbirds will be flooding the area
With their inventive outpourings –
More words and tunes than any other flying thing.
And farther into spring, the Bewick’s wrens
Will ration out their melodious teachings.
No, they are not reserved,
But because you must stop when they call out
They are careful of your convenience
– Or so I imagine.
#5
But the house finches are careless,
But the house finches are careless,
And hope you will carry on with your tasks
While they perfect their odes.
But if I had to pick my favorite poet
I could not do better than water.
Water writes the oldest poems,
The ones whose meanings
Are beyond time
And completely tied to this place,
This Earth.
The stanzas are endless,
Expressed in every wave,
Each bit of foam,
All the stream eddies
The dark pools,
The luxuriant sea.
Ask the turtles – they know.
I realize now,
Reading the poem in the light and shadows
Of the old oak tree,
I can read better than I supposed.
