<\/p>\n

Xantus\u2019s Hummingbirds<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Or the word for immanence, which I am told is called looking at trees I know because the kid secretly circles in her book<\/p>\n

glittering green upperparts, black face with distinct white stripe behind their eyes,<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

cinnamon-brown belly. Squared tail is rufous,<\/em> which means reddish brown only better.<\/p>\n

She changes her dog\u2019s name in gratitude to Mary; Mary wakes up every time someone gets named after her;<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

her mind says hello to all the objects not named after her, some of whom will get to be hummingbirds.<\/p>\n

Feelings before stars, glitter after. The wow of vagrants up the west coast all the way to British Columbia.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I swear I saw one she tells her mom. Love is to be amazed, find three dollars in your shirt pocket,<\/p>\n

have a bird named after you, name everything you love Mary.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Himalayan Snowcocks<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

I write and I love what I write. I write and I love and I have no fear I get along with my family;<\/p>\n

they braid my hair, they lead me into the mountains.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We turn into horses and our conversations are epic, so we gallop looking for riders then we are<\/p>\n

people again and naked and our conversations are manageable our riders let go they have poems to write.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Where are the snowcocks we\u2019ve come so far to see I\u2019m asking my cousin Jack, my uncle Arnie, so happy to see them but<\/p>\n

instead of answering, the answers are obvious, we are part of the slanting of this world we used to live on alpine pastures, on steep rocky cliffs.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We dive down hill slopes to escape we get transplanted to the Ruby Mountains in 1961.<\/p>\n

We persist in a state of Nevada. A sort of world where the past will go.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Feeding on grasses, sedges and forbs the Himalayan snowcocks graze above us and we are<\/p>\n

where we\u2019ve always been; the large, heavy parts shelter. People visit us in helicopters.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

White-faced Storm Petrels<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Found in three oceans. Will sell and horizon all circles. I won\u2019t escape, I just won\u2019t land,<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll stay at sea because I think more clearly there, even though it\u2019s the same thought,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

over and over, of escape. No one is circled don\u2019t worry about it but I\u2019m thinking love has to be<\/p>\n

in it because nothing is poetry without doing the sexy dance all the storm petrels say.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The secret is to get into one of those cores of Gulf Stream water that drift over the continental shelf edge area.<\/p>\n

Coast of the profound body, I want out and I keep pogoing back, smelling of my body, the sea and my body.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A body says you have to perform your body; on even the most remote islands they will only<\/p>\n

make love in the dark. I thought my shirt only unbuttoned so much. The full moon is too much.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Eating oil with all the other orphans. Repairing the damage will not be easy. The planning director<\/p>\n

leads the way on foot the other morning from the train station to the new blossoming.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He points out to the river and the river pours into the ocean, the gulls found there circle<\/p>\n

and grudgingly give way to never-resting petrels this land is my land he says and that sea is your alphabet.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Which makes us stories and someone is editing us they want to make the good parts better.<\/p>\n

We keep mattering. Looking forward to the next time.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Magnificent Birds-of-paradise<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Fuck around. This is the great unfolding of facts more brightly so then you\u2019re the sea and flight<\/p>\n

like love is just falling in reverse let me show you, let me, I am a collage of skies I know what I\u2019m doing,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

because I\u2019m doing it all the time, because my plumage is exceedingly complex, and territorial vibrations I\u2019m<\/p>\n

down with the weedspearing unorthodoxies, babe, my feathers hex all upanishads and mafia!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The upper canopy! Exclusive mountains! Rocking plumage displays!<\/p>\n

I\u2019m so good you\u2019re going to stop drinking diet soda after you sleep with me!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Flame-colored Tanagers<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Live in small groups, in sky islands, debt free, the earth tells them, there\u2019s room in the trees,<\/p>\n

in the cool and dark shade, enough seeds, concealed, just visiting from Mexico and asking<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

if you need rhetoric to explain that you don\u2019t explain because she is holy you perch on her hand<\/p>\n

you gladly pull feathers from your chest to ornament her she\u2019s looking for a bird to put in her mouth.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Obviously, why say things smoothly, as if, if you do, at last they\u2019ll love you, feed you like you were their favorite?<\/p>\n

The bad parts are thinking how to make the good parts better by seducing them with exquisite mating songs.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Soft as your wife\u2019s feathers, a flame-colored tanager flies out of her mouth and at first<\/p>\n

he\u2019s stunned to be reborn, sheltering beneath her holiness, her crown, her olive-green body,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

her black wings! It always keeps starting, she tells him, I don\u2019t have to tell you this.<\/p>\n

Even if all our names are on a list he says, I keep flying north, flight is my mother\u2019s gift.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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