Sonnet #316

To love a wild bird is to love without
that love returned for birds are scared
of us, at best, or steal what we might share
Because we love the way they fly about
The place: they sing and paint the sky
But will we sacrifice for them? We will
Put out seed perhaps, or plant a hedge they fill
We keep the pets in at the fledging time;
Do we let the bugs swell in number?
They eat the bugs -- They need them --
Do we let the dead wood stay there
and fill the grass with flowers? When
mosquito sinks her tooth we spare her?
Birds eat them. They need them. So do we?
Would you dare allow the blood to spill for free?

Sonnet #315

Indifferent to the fascist state, the wild pigs

come before the morning twilight, to eat

among the food packaging left along the street

They have no natural predators, these pigs

Perhaps a car might strike them, or a hunter

With a strong gun, or a trap, but once they gather

In the fields, there's little left around to bother

And they wander where they will. Never

do they think of order, never do they think

That buildings can be made on purpose

By beings just like them. They sniff and sink

Their jaws into the detritus, and relish those

bits of food cast out between our teeth, our drinks'

melted ice pooled. Indifferent to fascism imposed.

Sonnet #314

The spirits of the night take feline form
Or perhaps a rodent, either way, they move
Where their spirit moves them, and they love
Where their musk is ripe. I hear the storm

Before I see it, the flush of birdsongs in the dark
The stars that dance between the clouds
The streetlights mute and hush and proud
A spotlight on every avenue, a chorus lark

The sunlight curtains all the narratives of night
I hear the storm before I see it, where lost
children wander in the street, unbroken bright
And the drifting papers of the world, the cost
Of doing business in a neighborhood, that shite
That blows around, and where's that storm? Is it lost?

Sonnet #313

The time the grapes are ready is the time
The mockingbird comes hunting in
The tangle of the vine and trellis lines
A dart and hop and hunt and climb

I see the bird and he sees me, we speak
A language of possession old as life
In a glance, he says the world is strife
And all he sees is ripe is life, he takes

So I allow and see him take and when
He’s full, I clean a bucket, and some shears
And take and take and take and then
When he returns to vines he wears
The gaze of loss, where once was friend
And all the grapes are mine. And he stares.

Sonnet #312

I have a kind of restlessness that wakes
Me up before the dog, like a possum
I wander in the dark outside before daybreak
And sweat away the anxious dreams that come
When I am still awake, they chase me down
The street, and hide in shadows, passing cars
I hear the bad dreams barking and forlorn
Against the fence line, and the black fast dart
Of cats, all black in streetlight shadows, racing
Under cars, I walk until my dreams don’t hurt
Or at least until my legs hurt more, from pacing
They follow in the darkness, cling upon my shirt
Bad dreams, bad dreams, I wish to negotiate
A peaceful treaty, we’ll break bread on broken plates

Sonnet #311

A wise man told me to live for work

Never kill time, because my will

To rise up and make my mark fills

Me up and time’s shadow, death, always smirks

But I waste what I want, and encourage the same

Your work will falter, too, and when it does

It won’t matter whether you were in the throes

Of genius, driven and strong, or if your quiet name

Relaxed into ease and infamy. Diadems drop

As wise women sing, and our walk sends

Every moments’ step into a virgin snowfall, so stop,

Drink the wine, and ease into a fine, cool autumn

be kind enough to time and death that when it is the when

You can laugh and have a brandy with them

Sonnet #310

The traveling bards that hide in the trees

Ask so little of us who love their songs

Trees and flowers and keep the cats inside too long

If you can, and leave the garden be

The jubilee season, they journey south and sing to all

The songs they share as they go

Their gaudy costumes, their nimble dances, the show

All the world is a stage, the leaf curtain falls

The spotlight leans into their beautiful glow

Time the thief who gathers sins

Say this: say I’m weary, say I’m slow

Say the earth declines where I set in

I set some seed out, planted trees and flowers

The birds in their passing sing my hours

Sonnet #309

What memorial stone will we place

Where glaciers fade into the sea and all

The trees collapse into the barren soil

And burn -- we stand alone upon the face

Of stone, digging down to caves to save

The tiny pieces of our world that can be kept

In darkness, there, and no one else has wept

About the dead for quite some time. We’ll brave

The darkness, there, and eat the rocks

And carve memorials with broken teeth

To all the creatures we devoured, these blocks

Will stand until they erode or begin to breathe

No doubt we will invent some realism

And build and paint some glaciers in some convenient chasm.

Sonnet #308

In the park, there is a trail that runs through woods

It’s paved and there are bridges over rocks

The trees along the path are pruned and blocks

Prevent the mud from flowing like it would

It’s such a simple thing to see the seasons

Step out onto the trail, there’s wooded lines

There the flowers bloom and snakes unwind

And trees blossom, seed, then come undone

My son rides quiet on this trail, there’s deer

The dogs pass through, he smiles and calls out

The birds rise with sunlight, cicadas there

I took my son to church and he knew nothing

And I knew nothing, and they all knew nothing.

Sonnet #307

When the trains came to this country

They blew holes through mountains

The tracks ran on blood and misery

And everyone cheered them on the plains

I imagine a country with no tracklines laid

No highways carving cliffs of construction

That rise above the grass sea and river braids

A place as empty of us, some dirt tracks run

A few old blacktops twisting from river towns

In one hundred years this will be how it’s done

When planes fly to coastlines and cities, and drown

Among the dust where people move on who had cheered

The mountains bear the scars a thousand years

Sonnet #306

Coyotes know the streets, just so, they know

The nights when lanes are clear

They know the lights change and the fears

When engines rumble in the hills and grow

My friends, my romans, countrymen, you want to know your streets?

Tag coyote where she sleeps, and let

Her walk the night, where quiet footpaws set

And tag the cats and tag the dogs and watch their feet

The streets are only borrowed by all that step

Even we who build and claim to own do not

Own ground: we walk in daylight drive

In all hours and only for a moment hold our spot

And never see a corner or a place where thrive

Seeps in from forests, where wild things plot

Adventures unimagined, life and death

A story of familiar homes where mysteries breathe

*(Author's note: I think sonnets can be a little or short as needed. Still works like a sonnet.)

Sonnet #305

We walk in shadows in our heads

We stumble blind from room to room

As the shin bumps we learn our path to bed

This is a metaphor for how we speak and groan

It’s a symbol, of course, this living in a house

With other people in it, where we walk in the dark

Squint into the slanted light and seek a spouse

We will bump into each other, soft and hard

So these familiar steps will bend towards painless paths

Our fellow housemates bump and wander, and lest

The metaphor extend too far beyond the grass

Of night, let’s just say the dark must be addressed

And all who speak will claim the path ahead

Always sing out where future footfalls lead

Sonnet #304

The solution is so simple but if only were complex

If all we have to do to save ourselves

Is slow down, plant trees, garden, live well

Stop driving for a while, and have respect,

It seems so simple, plant a tree a day and then

Stop driving for a while, eat at home

From the garden, where joyfully grown,

And then we save the world, so simple, yet

Better it be some feat of engineering

Some massive construct moonbase crypto bet

Better it be a scheme so wild and difficult in constant steering

Make it visible from space and take a global bond debt

Make it corporate, make it loud, make it swallow workers whole

Only these salvations are permitted to the bold

Sonnet #303

Reclining in the lime leaves, still as stone,

The green anole lizard dreams, smiling

To sleep among the citrus trees, reclining

Where smell resolve the nightmares as they come,

I walked before the twilight turning lights 

on as I went, a violation of the calming sky

The creatures of the moon came up to try

and climb into the lightbulbs and the bright

Blessed darkness, we will always break the veil

And even into shadows of the sky we send our drones

We reach against the death to kill what kills

And analyze the dreams that hide in bones

But the reclining lizard dreams and smiles so still

Just wait, he sighs, for all light and heat will come