Untitled Poem

Where the firs grew in circles by Saranac Lake
A scarlet-eyed loon howled over its mate.
I felt its rage swell and swallow the sky,
Knock down the stars, the fire, and I.

The lap of the lake, the loon's song, my breath,
The sound of all life holds the promise of death.
To stand shod on those shores felt ignorant sin.
Let me go back to that place again.

The tap-drip of rain on the forest's green eaves,
Come cover and cloak me in pine and oak leaves,
To cut thru the gold poplars as a crow to its nest,
But Uncas is dead. Hawkeye is gone to the west.

Even October branches feel sacred and haunted,
To sway with their sway is not more than I've wanted.
Now in my mind it is winter, and the colors grow dim.
Let me go back to that place again.

At a farm in the fields where two rivers crossed,
And the swallows swooped low and were gone with the frost,
My thoughts held the shape of a lone whip-poor-will.
Did I dream it all then? Could I dream it still?

A lion had stepped from the ranks of the corn
And shattered the moon with the boom of his roar.
The blue of his eye burned thru me like flame.
Let me go back to that place again.

The roll of the prairie's striated loom,
The smell of the sweet grass and Indian perfume,
Old boots and a horse and and feathers and grains
And ride with the buffalo over the plains,

The drum of the sage grouse, the coyote choir,
Joseph went cold and dead with his fire,
Solace and silence, without and within,
Let me go back to that place again.

Is the world - or I - who has changed?
That the sounds are all harsh and the words have come strange?
That we've mapped out the stars, found the secrets therein,
And we've been to the wizard, though our hearts remain tin?

The fields are all burned. The river's gone dry.
A body of crows has eaten the sky.
I remember the way that it was before then.
Let me go back to that place again.