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!'ARTISAN REVIEW
terrible air rushed in to fill
them like fi.wo shrubs bursting with leaves. You took pour hour,
caught breath, and cried with your full lung ,power.
Over the stagnant bight
we see the hungry bank swallow
flaunting his free flight),
still; we sink in mud to follow
the killdeer from the grass
that hides her nest. That March there was
rain; the rivers rose; you could hear killdeers flying
all night over the mudflats crying.
You bring back how the red-
winge:d blackbird shrieked, slapping frail wings,
diving at my head-
I saw where her< tough nest, cradled, swings
in tall reeds that must sw(6)l
with the winds blowing euery way.
If you recall much, you recall this ,place. You still
live nearby-on the opposite hill.
After the sharp windstorm
of July Fourth, all that summ,er
through the gentle, warm
afternoons, we heard great chain saws chirr
like iron locusts. Crews
of roughneck boys swarmed to cut loose
branches wrenched in the shattering wind, to 'hack free
all the torn limbs that could sap the tr:ee.
In the debris lay
starlings, dead. Near the park's
bi~drun
we surprised one day
a proud, tan-spatted, buff-brown pigeon.
In my hands she flapped so
fearfully that I let her go.
Her keeper came. And we helped snarl her in a net.
You bring things 1'd as soon forget.
You raise into my head
a Fall night that I came once more
