Two Poems
Twig-Weaving
I was gone when the wind took the nest
gone when the broom handle fell
gone when the circled twigs and mud
came down—this time gone, scattered
across pavement, gone the life inside—
gone the egg came rolling, came cracking,
gone bird yoke spreading just like guilt
gone their little offering of home
gone the birds will try again
gone we will not stop their twig-weaving
gone their woven womb.
Always We Begin Again
Today you could wake up and say, It doesn’t have to be complicated—
life, that is, in the way a forest overtakes the scourge of the machine.
Eventually, the scar will be covered first by high grasses and flowering
weeds, then shoulder high pines that spine their way to the leaf ceiling.
Life, you could say, could be like that. A regrowth, something
the whole forest seems to agree upon, beginning the moment after
the metal teeth carve a wound. Life could be like that, and love.
Love—the way years from now you will look down the path
the machine took and never know that once this was the way
the humans went, blistering their way, metal teeth dripping sap.
