Soundings

1
Planes, fireworks, thunder/ when America
is at war, we should refrain
from celebrating like this. The sky is too much,
upset like a child with candy-store eyes and a full-sick belly
running sparks on the neighborhood.

In times of war the sky should hold all breath/ roll no thunder
planes should stay on the ground/ children in the house/ and we should refrain.


2
Take the urge of run and the lift of flight
the ur of burn/ world, whole
farm-war, forest war, valley-war/ when America
wars we take word-sounds and make them flat-fast to the page
with letters standing in for sounds our mouths won't make/ burning old names
with new fire and if the smoke blows East, we dance farm-war wise,
if West, we will drink our coffee forest-war style,
if the smoke blows South, all the slave-ghosts rise in valley-war
and if the smoke blows North, all the whales sing to sound the smoke out
and the operator translating from the whale song
(the song which took shape in smoky air and sound waves pulled through the water
into words the whales caught to keep)
learns the whales fear
that war will put an end to all ears and to all music.


3
The crows are all a-caw today/ what do they say and why
do they turn the pre-dawn sky into a flutter of caw and crisis,
the campus into a tabernacle of shiny black squawk?
What of the long power of feathers/ spread lovely on the ground after flight,
or was it fight? It is now all aftermath, either way.

We will fill their hollow bones with squid ink
and dance them in letters, whole words across the page, our own
inky incantations mimicking the biggest crow left as he barks the sun up
from the other side of the world.