The Hard Essential Landscape
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Contemporary Poetry Series
University Presses of Florida, 1979

<sup>1

Apalachee
Driving at Dawn
Sightings: Ivory-Billed Woodpecker
Cows Waking in a Pasture
The Horses
The Moth
For the Injured Squirrel Found on Centerville Road
The Mockingbird
The Lookout                 
The Aucilla                    
The Absurd Snowman       
The Sea Birds              
Sassafras                     
The View from My Hammock 
Ladscapes for Voyagers</sup>
 

<sup>2

The Posthumous Son: The Deathbirth
France, October, 1918
Ostraka                    
The Ceremonies
Spelunking                  
Dead Man Creek      
Rites: Nightfishing        
Childhood                    
The Fans                  
Remembering Dresden
The Key                 
The Dreamers       
Littoral              
In the Zebra      
The Lives & Wars of Bunzo Minagawa  
The Dead Baby</sup>

<sup>3

The Tunnel        
The Book of the Dead  
The Land of the Old Fields 
Bellair             
Christ in the Sun    
TheTurtle'sVoice   
Lake Country White 
King               
The Tree          
The Evidence    
Federal Pen        
In the Manner of V.B(
       for George Seferis) 
To a Friend       
The Ivory Billed Woodpecker 
Driving at Night.</sup>

Lake Country White

You tell me poetry has wing and tail feathers;
Mine sticks to its roost--a naked bird--
Mesmerized by the thin whine of children
Gnawing at my wooden nerves with a dull blade.
Flashbacks of infants drugged by hunger
Are voiced-over by your words
Like the arms that hold them but no longer try
To brush away flies that swarm in and out
Of their nostrils, parted lips and cracked,
Sleeping eyes. 

While I was seeing this, you voiced-over
Africa and Asia; and I should not have mentioned
The heavy silences of the aged
In hospital waiting rooms--You told me not to--
Or the courtrooms of the poor
Missing a day's wages to be quizzed by
A gentle judge with a voice like yours.

You keep telling me I should fly away
To the mountains or suburbs or Disneyworld.
I sip my Taylor's Lake Country White,
Listening to you and watching my children
Playing like gazelles on a fertilized lawn.
I may be happier than you know here in Florida;
Your voice gnaws at my nerves;
Imagination sticks to its roost--a naked bird
Growing enormous and pecking at your words.
 

Childhood

In the late midsummer we made
a biplane from a railroad tie
fuselage and two 2 X 12 wings
to fight red‑eyed Dog Days
bearing down like Zeroes.  As we
added elevator and rudder, I began
to believe my cousin and I could
climb over his house, old garage,
and even the town and county
straddling that solid beam.  I 
had never made such flights,
and though I was small, for a moment
I made that nailed wood fly.

There in front of the garage
where we worked as the hurt pup
bit each nail, the sore by its
ear breathed.  And when we looked
closely, in it, dispersed, swam
alive on his life, in his, his
death‑‑maggots!  Error past repair.
horror, duty, regret, remorse‑‑
name it.  Vets were far from us.
Folks said, "poor‑thing‑must‑be‑
killed."  With no gun, unable to
bring ourselves to bash his head, 
we dug a hole and covered him up,
            instead.