The Last Line

The Crow King Grants a Boon

 

They crowned the Crow King with a circlet of silver

Forged with the captured light of the waxing stars.

On the morning after the night of the new moon,

We vowed to serve; but the river bending made

The river too wide to cross. Ready and watching

At the well, I shook the sleep from my eyes and shed

The cocoon from my soul at last. The Minstrel brought

Money, but it was his violin I wanted (in exchange

For some of my sadness—even trade). Love was

A fallen bird on the forest floor. It was the frozen

Smoke of words said in coldness. I asked the King

For laughter, the thing the Crow King best bestows,

But instead he gave me the gift of finite patience

And a circlet of silver made of the waxing stars.

 

 

The Kestrel Over Culver

 

To Gerard Manley Hopkins

 

In the first light of the first day of Autumn

She slides in the air above the boulevard

That skirts the wetlands of Los Angeles:

The poem appears. “A windhover,” I say aloud.

Silently flying but herself unmoving, a master

Worker of the Santa Ana winds: With little

Adjustments of flesh and feather, will find

The perfect resistance.

                           One of her kind

Inspired the words she now evokes in me,

Writing to you, the literal line and simile

Settling down together for a chat; an echo

Of an echo of a voice, flesh-made words,

Words made flesh—having been seen, both of us, Being.