Elegy: for Robert B.
by Wm. Baldwin Jan. 2014
To list as a prized possession
the conch’s pink underbelly
as it wraps the braided clam,
to keep in a heart’s vault
the purple gallinule who
steps with red-foot caution ‘cross
wind-tossed lily pads,
to own outright an oak’s limb,
a pine’s bark, and all the blue sky
patched between
you must try and be buried
nearby.
Blood
by Wm. Baldwin Feb. 2015
Under the deer’s hide blood is hidden,
blood and dark ruby knots of muscle
made by deer from what is browsed.
And in the hunter’s heart blood is hidden,
blood and dark ruby knots of muscle
made by man from what is chased,
and in heart beats we can trace the two:
down the field edge, through
the canes and here.
Chance Meeting with a Fox Squirrel
by Wm. Baldwin Feb. 2015
In the maze of loitering trees, in soft shadow of their leaves,
I see a furtive flick of gray, of white, of black, and squirrel away.
So it is with such meetings. No chance there of simple greetings.
Your dark eyes on mine have set. Likely you are scolding yet.
Quail
by Wm. Baldwin Feb. 2015
He’s gone out to check the dogs,
the pointers in pens, and after that
the horses and the men’ll get
good words of greeting. Where they’ll
hunt. That’s the question. And
if it’s true the earth cocks over so,
wobbles some and spins like crazy,
could explain why standing in the light
she tilts her head to brush her hair,
and sways now to a sentimental favorite,
and how this frown of eighty years ago
has found its audience.
Fabled
by Wm. Baldwin Feb. 2015
In retrospect what came before
isn’t coming anymore.
Those places that your father stood,
pristine beach, deserted wood,
have whittled, sunk, been locked away.
Still there is in here today
sufficient beauty tucked away.
Yet silent skies and waterways
effect a poisoned stillness stays.
Twine to rope, we weave a spell:
empty heavens stitched from hell.
