48

bring the funk, the

masked man said, the camera

and your black box of

cryptic lenses

bring your list of birds, he said (

adjusting the light) the whole

endless tally, so that we might

weigh the years

bring more than you know

sort through it later

bring

he said, all you can carry of

drink, witness, abandon

drive north

sing

there are warblers here, in the spruce

blown beyond their sun, scattered

among dark-eyed juncos 

they'll be dead by morning

47

quiet a while, or not so

with my footsteps and

those long acres beyond

up, through bare trees and

the dog leading, black

with red around her soft

buckled throat

a deer scull, placed

as an offering, a stone

by a stream imagining

altars, I suppose

probably placed there

by a child or a weathered

bird watcher, because

why not and doesn’t it

seem right to raise the dead

above, and changing

the April sky tugs tomorrow

across the afternoon