March 2015
I am a husband, father, rabid backyard gardener, and blogger on nature, books, films and other subjects based on the premise that there's a garden metaphor for everything. Still utopian and idealistic after all these years, I cover the arts for the Boston Globe's 'South' regional sections and also write about environmental issues. My short stories, poems, book reviews, and creative nonfiction have appeared in numerous literary publications. I was named a Finalist in the Massachusetts Artist Grant Program for a story about my "greatest generation" father.
The Light of Snow
In the light of snow
a bird with a tawny breast relaxes on a branch
no thicker than my fingernail
shadows form, the sky clears,
the world shapes up on the crystalline white planes
thicker branches highlighted
darker forms, stones and bricks, lifted to the light
Contrast has come to the world
gloom banished
A breeze riffles the branch
the beak of the perched bird dips once or twice
yes this is the shrub with winter berries
but this bird is not serious
this is not the way to eat berries
balanced on a figment of light
this is the way to pose
in the light of snow
in the light of snow
The Hawk Who Loved Me
I remember the hawk who loved me
Posing by the roadside on a dull day
or beside the pleasures of the harbor
daring me, enticing me
The way he stood (or she: I'll never know)
following me, the pursuer with the camera
looking down from the crotch of each suitable tree
beguiling me with a bath in the puddle
had avian lover ever exposed so many soaking feathers?
I took his hand, but his talon ripped my flesh
What Gulls Eat in the Winter
the gulls eat snow
in the high noon light
the strand exposed at low tide
rocks and the waste of the ocean floor
snow gleamed everywhere,
reflecting the grinning sun
All this have I done, the sun seemed to say,
I have whipped up the currents, roiled the winds
I blew my hot breath upon the ocean,
squirreled up highs and lows, inversions, reversions, wild temptations
loosed my vengeance on the placid sprawling life
that endures, or thinks it does, all winter by the sea
I have sent my blanket of snow to warm my children
and feed the gulls
oh no, said the moon
you did what you could but you were
toothless without dear old changeable me
I pointed the waves and urged on the waters
against the bric-a-brac shorelines built by the little sprawling creatures
that covet the earth
I filled their busy days with clutter
now the gulls and the sea ravens, the gregarious guillemot
and garnet-loving gannets, have bones to pick
oh no, said the gull, I feed where I will
squeal and scream and sing my claiming song
and boast of fine feathered finds
you do nothing without me
I pick clean the sunshine
and soar in the rain, ride the winds
to the accidental heaven of Big Bird Land
where the seas cover all the shores
birds have tongues
and all your snow tastes of ice cream
Mine for a Season
Water, and the rushing
Spring breaks somewhere in the keening hills
where the old earth keeps time
the birds spool it out,
soft needles for their nest,
willow sheaths to frame it
mud to spawn the foody bits with legs or fins
tadpole tails ungluing from the integrity of oneness
to try it on their own,
however long "it" lasts
Freshets every morning, steel clinking in ice water
Long liquid songs every night,
lighting the world's fires
The birds forget they know me
I sit at the place where you walk halfway across
halfway a god
all day without voices,
though the farm track runs behind me
Life before telephones, before cars
before the need
The stream that streaks and dances in the rumble
remembers my days
When it tells them to me
in its leaping mineral voice
they turn into something else
In the light of snow
a bird with a tawny breast relaxes on a branch
no thicker than my fingernail
shadows form, the sky clears,
the world shapes up on the crystalline white planes
thicker branches highlighted
darker forms, stones and bricks, lifted to the light
Contrast has come to the world
gloom banished
A breeze riffles the branch
the beak of the perched bird dips once or twice
yes this is the shrub with winter berries
but this bird is not serious
this is not the way to eat berries
balanced on a figment of light
this is the way to pose
in the light of snow
in the light of snow
The Hawk Who Loved Me
I remember the hawk who loved me
Posing by the roadside on a dull day
or beside the pleasures of the harbor
daring me, enticing me
The way he stood (or she: I'll never know)
following me, the pursuer with the camera
looking down from the crotch of each suitable tree
beguiling me with a bath in the puddle
had avian lover ever exposed so many soaking feathers?
I took his hand, but his talon ripped my flesh
What Gulls Eat in the Winter
the gulls eat snow
in the high noon light
the strand exposed at low tide
rocks and the waste of the ocean floor
snow gleamed everywhere,
reflecting the grinning sun
All this have I done, the sun seemed to say,
I have whipped up the currents, roiled the winds
I blew my hot breath upon the ocean,
squirreled up highs and lows, inversions, reversions, wild temptations
loosed my vengeance on the placid sprawling life
that endures, or thinks it does, all winter by the sea
I have sent my blanket of snow to warm my children
and feed the gulls
oh no, said the moon
you did what you could but you were
toothless without dear old changeable me
I pointed the waves and urged on the waters
against the bric-a-brac shorelines built by the little sprawling creatures
that covet the earth
I filled their busy days with clutter
now the gulls and the sea ravens, the gregarious guillemot
and garnet-loving gannets, have bones to pick
oh no, said the gull, I feed where I will
squeal and scream and sing my claiming song
and boast of fine feathered finds
you do nothing without me
I pick clean the sunshine
and soar in the rain, ride the winds
to the accidental heaven of Big Bird Land
where the seas cover all the shores
birds have tongues
and all your snow tastes of ice cream
Mine for a Season
Water, and the rushing
Spring breaks somewhere in the keening hills
where the old earth keeps time
the birds spool it out,
soft needles for their nest,
willow sheaths to frame it
mud to spawn the foody bits with legs or fins
tadpole tails ungluing from the integrity of oneness
to try it on their own,
however long "it" lasts
Freshets every morning, steel clinking in ice water
Long liquid songs every night,
lighting the world's fires
The birds forget they know me
I sit at the place where you walk halfway across
halfway a god
all day without voices,
though the farm track runs behind me
Life before telephones, before cars
before the need
The stream that streaks and dances in the rumble
remembers my days
When it tells them to me
in its leaping mineral voice
they turn into something else
©2015 Robert C. Knox