Swamp: in the manner of T. Hoagland by Wm. Baldwin, May 29, 2017
If a swamp is just a swamp
and not some metaphor of pristine happiness,
a glimpse of man before the door was closed
(this, too, failing if the door is just a door,
and not the portal to a sky of clouds and shades of blue),
if life is just a life, if the shifting cypress limbs,
the Mississippi Kite, all these white water lilies,
and bellowing of bull frogs are not God’s apologies,
items of beauty exchanged for the briefness of our days,
then we must try to save America another way.
Wild Iris by Wm. Baldwin, May 31, 2017
Flowers have no words for fear,
for poisonous snake, extended care.
They live each morning as their last.
Have no notion of the past…
or the future. All’s between,
the culmination, gentle dream.
Still, as they fade, our want’s betrayed.
Such it is poor beauty’s made.
In Memoriam by Wm. Baldwin, May 24, 2017
I like to think my father
rules a universe of frogs,
of grumping frogs on half sunk logs.
And now a gator joins the din.
Calling for a mate begins.
A snake bird flaps,
spreads wide dark wings,
and sun embraced, adjusts her stance,
cries a snakebird cry.
And I? What chance for me?
What words for him?
Tuesday a week my father would be 103…
but long ago he died,
pressed a palm to his forehead,
and content, at last, to abandon
this weary man-made system, sighed.
Another Trump Sunday by Wm. Baldwin, May 14, 2017
It doesn’t worry me
how the sun, new sprung
from night’s governance,
slips her way past
pecan leaves, then is made to slide
behind some loping clouds,
nor how the squirrel swings
on the squirrel proof
feed-the-birds swing,
now set to jingling: ting, ting, ting.
No. Not those.
It’s spoken words.
Silly and ferocious. Words insane.
The cavities they cause,
the wrenching holes
which must be patched
or else the air implodes.
The Wood Duck by Wm. Baldwin. March 18, 2017 (for Talking with Birds)
They nest in trees,
and please their mates
with whistle calls
and acorn treats.
Of course, there
are those decoy ducks,
carved from wood
to fool and such,
but these are not
your true wood ducks.
