Songs of the Puget Sound

2.

Yesterday
hens carried their round flouncy bodies
up into the coup,
chittering and cooing their sunshine happiness.

Something then moved out of the blackberries.
Little gift of wildness,
a cup of warmth
in a baby's coat

content,
and hardly afraid.

The hens in bed told stories
soft so soft
to each other and the hidden moon.

So I sat on the porch of the hen house
glad songs welcoming ears,
and the rabbit,
no more than a few weeks old,
nibbled the tender grass.

There is a time at the end of the most perfect day,
when the sun has been your companion,
when the air lingers full of the first few days of summer,

when there could be no more perfection
and then comes a movement,
the brown innocence,
quicker beat of heart
so far from your own.

To rise up on tiny bones and wonder,
to grasp a green stalk
taller than your head,

with no hands. Yes, no hands.
And I imagine how small its ivory
grinding as the grass and seeds slip
down into that bit of darkness.

Imagine what may come later in the long night
of larger hungers. And I wonder if it lives in fear.
And if not is this called innocence.

The ears turn to gather from this way and that
a warning, yet the air is warm and heavy. Old moon
hasn't yet climbed into its fields of stars.

And the hens, fall silent.
I leave the seed eater as we have
both reached our satisfaction.

A day like that
one hardly knows
how to write about.

~~~

How the Boy Saved Dragons

What little voice
in darkness calls
from behind the stars
where once were walls.

From a far off land
of dragon dance
where wars were ended
and peace began.

I hail the silence
I hail the song
into crowds of hearts
the victory won.





for Tyler Robinson & Imagine Dragons

c2014 T.L. Stokes (all rights reserved)

Tyler Robinson Foundation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISpAgxW1vQw

Wild Things in the Night




The committee of roosters gathers
at my ankles, the night
drifts off like a loose horse.

In my ears the coyotes' laddered song
still lingers. Wild open throated.
A language not so strange
awakens the heart,

gleefully, from a simple dream.

I wake with the sun,
the field is empty.

I look down into the petal of my hand,
and in between the fingers,
one tuft of gold-gray fur remains.





c2011 T.L.Stokes (all rights reserved)

Salmon Song

Salmon Song



We look through layers
of old arms. The dripping green
and flat flowers, fiber of sleep,
petals of collected ultraviolet.

Some call it forest.

To us it has no name.
We feel it, borrowing the chipped
and snapped off offering,
its broken separating piles of names,
heart in pieces, spark of seed.

All through these colors
flows the chant of salmon.
And beyond this, their messages
of river-bended light,
and ocean's mouth
reciting the blood call.

Ancient offspring.
Just as I begin to tell you
my perch's history, all of it
changes.

The tree begins to stretch upward,
like an old man unraveling his bones
and holding his flesh high overhead
he becomes something like sky
barked over and burning.
His blood is a river,
black and fragrant.

He turns slowly to our
glowing eyes.

Come sit a while with me,
he says. And learn.
Cast your eyes like eagles.
Watch how everything
constantly changes.

There is no word for this.
Stop. Shhhh. Listen.

So still is the light of all things.
So quiet yet thunderous living.

Here comes the wet and glorious
voice of storm. Tuck under this wide
curved wall and we will watch together.
The woods come down,
the river is a sky.

Sleep if you must.
My breast continues
the drum beat you
have always known.

Steady.
Filling you, the forest,
the wet black river of

salmon song within you.






for Ostrich



c2011 T.L.Stokes (all rights reserved)

Tree of Birds

Tree of Birds
by T.L. Stokes



From vast paths unlit and mysterious
I am pulled back to the water planet,
back to slim light reaching under the window,
back to the sound of a thousand broken songs--
black wings crowded into one old alder
on the edges of the field.

My eyes are sleepy. White curtain drawn
away from the window, crouched and curious,
I watch the birds. Hundreds of wings carpet
the upper stretch of old black arms.
The crow family tries to scare them off,
they all sing louder. A busy roar. A squirrel
travels along dark highways, I can't even hear
him. The alpacas, soft and elegant, stare.

I lie on a pillow at the window, snapping photos
upside down. Loud birds in their monstrous flock
sing and chatter for a long while. Then a handful,
scatter away from the tree's head. Like pepper into
empty space. Then another handful. Over and over
they shake themselves away. I have a picture, of
the last one, what is his name--

what door did he close
when they had all flown away?





for Heather
because she sees magic

Twitter and George

Notes:

George Wintston is following me on Twitter. That's right. So I'm following him.

And what am I doing today you might be asking. Well, stay tuned. Remember, anything is possible. Take time to imagine, that's how children create the rest of their lives.


T.L. Stokes