ft. knox pt.3

Two moose drown in a toxic pond
At Fort Knox Goldmine.
Stuck in the mud,
Such is reported

In the Daily News Miner.
Above the fold like embezelment,
Larceny or murder,
Bloodstains and oilspills.

My pen seeks out
A darker explanation:
Perhaps two moose
Out of shock and dismay

At the terraced dome
Smashed to sand and sifted
Down to the marrow
Of her holy bones--

Two grief stricken moose
Drowning themselves
In cianide
To protest

The bleeding of the earth
The milking of the stones,
Stealing golden honey
From the hive.

predator control

Sixty-six dead wolves
and eighty thousand
dollars later.

Fish and wildlife
protection-
the merits
of culling
the feral litter.

Which cost more,
fifty calliber bullets
or aviation gasoline?
Twelve-hundred-and-twelve
dollars-per-dead wolf
later.

Let us draft
an impact analysis;
rhettorically speaking
the wild wolf
is more than equal
to domesticated man.

And like the wolf
we sometimes kill
senselessly-
because it's in our nature.

Sixty-six dead wolves
and eighty thousand
dollars later.

cobalt laced moon…

The storm began
before the Alaska Range
From inside of the whiteout,
outside of the peripheral
dreaming; we saw a giant owl
outside of the corner window
Descending through
the lightly falling snow,
a blurr of feathers
and stoicism
His wingspan
at least six feet
from wingtip to wingtip,
--The spanning angel
Descends brilliantly
Beneath the early November sky,
Backlit by halogen and moonlight,
the metallic aurora of the fresh snowfall,
All is illuminated,
this white on white substance,
Where memory erodes
quickly, envisioning
The pregnant and full moon
like seasons past,
and projects left undone,
forever postponed
beyond forgetting, or regretting
as the stone hand of time,
throws sparks from the anvil,
transformed into pearls
of opalescent ice,
a frozen waterfall,
whose veil cannot hide
such supernatural beauty,
haunting and suspended
the image of the beloved,
endures forever,
the day they first met,
a supernatural solution
to a supernatural riddle.
Love alone is worth it,
New memories draped
upon the white canvas,
there is nothing left to sketch,
but vistas of white forests,
glowing blue in the moonlight
as the moon is waning
I found a book
about ravens, black
and the flesh was the color of snow,
the clear green ice
was the temperature of my soul.
Pale blue and vacant ,
Cold purple horizon,
the cobalt laced moon…

bearprints and fresh snow

emotional moonlight
and the moondogs sparkle
metallic halide,

through fresh filtered spheres
illuminating new autumn ice
burning the fog

in lunar crisp clarity
the electric halo
phosphorescent

to the human spectrum
the cool slab of ivory
pulling in the naked eye

a moist new snow
in which bear and wolf
still roam

the mid-october night
as witnessed upon the powdered ridge
two sets of tracks,

both human and bear,
who is following whom;

which creature seeks
the moment of redemption?

fifty white swans

fifty white swans

descending through
cool white clouds

hovering so close
to earth

I can feel
the flutter of wings

a choir
of angelic birds

the seasonal furrow
the sacred southern V.

pointing the way
homeward

after a summer
of boreal bliss

(the post coital kiss)

Four and a half
fresh inches

of blue dusky snowfall
waking from the dream

of falling feathers
a subarctic Icharus

awaiting signs
shimering silver

in the chrome
of mid October light

when night arrives
with full moonlight

bedding down
harvest of stars

in the quiet chill
a song of birds

the rhythmic flapping
of one hundred wings

pierced by blue starlight

six o clock ravens

a season of ravens
outside my window
calling my name
each and every morning
give or take ten
minutes
at six-o-clock

from the sky they caw
from atop the spruce
they decend
scanning the yard
for breakfast
and feasting upon
my soul

"Caw! caw!"
I answer
for when they greet
I always respond
from low in the
voice box
eerily sounding
like a black bird
the language of ravens
easily spills
from my tongue

no stranger to nature
unmaddening as well
as madness
and other sandnesses
which generally
leave me at a loss
for words
If it were not
for the six-o-clock
ravens, I might become
mute as an agnostic
unhappy at happy hour
undead among the liveing

circumnavigating the world
like a kite built of stars
or a transmigration
of disembodied souls

a part of me soars
above
the rigepole
the smell of sunshine
landing on the crown
of the roof
like a king upon
his perch
ruling the green
midsummer wood

The six-o-clock ravens
call your name
and have eyes so dark
and shiney like garnets
reminding you of someone
forgotten long ago
no stranger to your love

the black birds
come because they
are enchanted by
your sweet tongue

winter blossom

before June, i will
make new resolutions,
which i must observe
for an entire
halfyear,
endowed with no
mere perfection...

and so
the midwinter thaw,
a suprise snowstorm,
the village suspended

distilled in the Sweet
crystalline constant
the world captured
behind ice,

and the breath of wolves
bursts forth
in a great
frosty snort
showing the moose no mercy
there is no excuse
for nature's efficiency

This world transfused
with flame and fire,
the iris flickers black
beneath the light,

transcendent like maple sugar,
fireweed honey, or cranberries dried
translucent red glow in the mason jar
tart and re-kindled upon the tongue

in the absence of daylight
imagination, and the trickling
enumeration, reliving, forgiving,
letting go of the silent
blue cocoon of snow
these dreams will bloom
some time in June.