Donald Revell
 

drought

In the tree beside me,
Hummingbird growls at beetle,
A low drone,
And while I'm finding them,
Horsefly sneaks into my cup of wine.

Eyesight is nobody.
Perspective dies before it lives,
And it lives a long time after death

Like birdsong.

When I die, I will begin to hear
The higher frequency,
A whine, as though the moment were a lathe.
It will be a true lathe,
All my life spinning off from it.
 

monterey

A kindred mind with mine,
The sky has no idea, having
Gorged itself on diamonds.
Who put us here?
Who put us here with eyes?
I look at the sky. The sky looks down.
Saw yesterday three little birds,
Olive green above white breasts -
My father's birthday.
He is in heaven with his eyes.
When I was a child I was rain,
And he and God were all the clear,
Fragrant spaces and mind among mine.
The birds knew, and the rainbow too. I was looking.
 

desert willow

The yellowbirds will not come to a younger man.
And then you add the sky, creating trees
Which add their voices to the birds'.
Almost instantly, the sky falls down in flames.
Wait a moment. Take a drink. Brush
The fly from your wrist. Flesh falls away.
The bone becomes more slender, more attuned
To little changes in the wind, and then
The bone-branch flowers - soft trumpets
So quietly purple they are also white.
Welcome bees. Creation is something else.
I was living with good women right upstairs
From Italy. The winter, after a long while,
Was a heavy bird, yellow where the sun would rise.