Plummer’s Hollow – Page 3

May 28, 2023May 28, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Bullshit Walks

found in a flower
one beetle’s quota of sleep

longhorned to graze
in pastures of white

Clintonia or Solomon’s plume
and soon the black cohosh

looking up i spot a raccoon’s
wide-eyed mask

returning my gaze from the crotch
of a dying hemlock

every day has its dog
on Thursday for a long moment

i walked with a yearling bear
ahead of me on the trail

whose walk is it then
one can only wander

on the steep slope
above the railroad

i find a patch of jacks-in-the-pulpit
that the deer missed

a train hurtles past with blue
containers of stink

our daily delivery of refuse
from the megalopolis

i climb through century-old quarries
rocks shift underfoot

still settling
where mountain holly blooms

the breeze wafts ambrosia
from some reclusive azalea

i pause for breath
a vireo chirps in alarm

i stop for lunch
a hooded warbler scolds

down-trail a second-generation
mourning cloak butterfly

circles its dappled
patch of sun

territory folks defending
their stake in the sticks

while a distant cuckoo
chants her own name

gorging on tent caterpillars
and spotted lanternfly larvae

letting strangers
foster her offspring

this is the background
i can’t include in my shots

whenever i stop to snap photos
of new or bigger plants

how green is my mountain now
with so much CO2 in the air

my ankles brush against
the Aladdin lamps of pale corydalis

rising through the still-tender
hayscented ferns

and a mosquito sinks her rig
right through my hat

the sun may descend into haze
but the light’s still perfect

the mountain’s shadow stretching
across the farm valley to my east

i watch a manure spreader
ply the rows of a sterile field

growing the dead zone
out of mind in the Chesapeake

until the wind shifts
and i beat a retreat

back from my walk i turn
the garden with a fork

straining out noodley roots
of invasive brome

dry fists of dirt
crumble at the touch

May 1, 2023May 1, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Beltane

and what if my photos lose
any center of interest
becoming pure tapestry

i want no subjects
i want the impossible world itself
without me in it

after a late hard frost
i want to stroke each velvety leafling
on the mountainside

nothing is realer right now
than this green
i get off my train of thought for it

for an enormous oak with tiny leaves
twirling on their twigs against the clouds
like larval dragons

as the wind turns rainy
as a dog’s tongue
and the green fades with the daylight

i count mountains to fall asleep
leaving room in my dreams
for their lost languages

before the Great Hill People
wiped out the People
of the Blackened Ridge Pole

and Scotsmen came from Ulster
enlarged the void with rifles
and whiskey made from maize

clearcutting and prospecting
shooting the cougars
trapping out the wolves

without whom an alien
far less palatable greenness
spreads over the land like mold

i have been battling it with both hands
pulling out rampant barberry
privet and autumn olive

stopping to listen to new warblers
still flying thousands of miles
just to breed here

that nasal buzz
of a black-throated green
or a black-throated blue

and my camera is only a phone
with so many missing contacts
i hold it up to the sky

April 22, 2023April 22, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Dispatch from a Warming Planet

an April morning turns torrid
it begins with a buzz

a rustle in the oak leaves
shed last fall

as a bumblebee emerges
spotless from the earth

below the damp bells
of huckleberry blossoms

and every dangling catkin
in the wind’s index

morels raise
their hitchhikers’ thumbs

each webbed with a maze
of forking paths

i find the remains of a list
in my back pocket

the washing machine has
erased every last item

and puzzled the paper up
like gray honeycomb

this is what happens when i try
to collect myself

better just to focus
on finding places

where i can step without crushing
fresh-leafed ephemera

a whiff of smoke from a forest fire
five miles away

i struggle up the hill in the heat
a black-and-white warbler wheezes

i find a spot of shade where
witch hazels have leafed out

sitting in gray among gray rocks
i’m invisible to a groundhog

who wanders past without
so much as a glance

soon i too resume sleep-
walking in the heat

my shoes turn
yellow with pollen

a bumblebee vanishes
into a vole tunnel

a mile down the ridge i find
a pile of owl feathers

just beginning to scatter
in the midday glare

April 16, 2023April 16, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Four Nights on Earth

the evening sky pulses
like an organ of light and void

the planets aren’t up
to anything i tell myself

a weasel’s shrill cry
behind me in the meadow

i recall the seething darkness
of tadpoles in a shrinking puddle

and the predatory newt who watched
over them as they hatched

east- and west-bound freights
pass each other moaning

a satellite crosses the heavens
without so much as a twinkle

dawn sky
through skinny branches

a thin blade of moon
in its halo like a fish on a platter

a quiet trickle from the spring
gives way to guttural trucks

the open range of the night
is closing fast

any minute now the birds begin
their summoning spells

if the earth’s ache for rain
should become my own

let me suckle at the root
of the lightning tree

for seventeen years
like a cicada

thunder might become
an antidote to numbness

there may be a howl
that holds us all in its bowl

spring peepers will keep up
their transmissions

ground fog and glowworms
build and fade
below the milky way

meteors leave
the briefest of trails

on the horizon the blink
blink of a red-eye flight

i try to picture other skies
elsewhere in the galaxy

what exotic stars
what mysteries of lifelessness

and how many more lives
might i have i wonder

as these stars start to fade
and tires resume
their dull rounds

giving the road called i-99
its red breakfast

April 12, 2023April 12, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Geo Logic

pausing for breath i gaze up
into blossoming red maples

from one of which a red-
tailed hawk lifts off

the wake-robins’ wine-dark
buds are loosening

gnats circle my head
baffled by my glasses

i can hear a waterthrush
up around the next bend

of the stream that carved
this whole masterpiece of a hollow

though you’d never guess
from the way it breaks

over every rock and log
like something fragile

i push my glasses back up
and resume pulling weeds

for my mother, Marcia Bonta

April 1, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Time Travelers

how the hours have fallen
from their early days among monks

now they are uniform
modular
single-use

save for the odd poet or naturalist
taking minutes like medicine

for whom listening might be
the purest form of devotion

at the bottom of the hollow
two migrant waterthrushes

serenade the stream
its blended whiskery gurgles

just before it vanishes
into a culvert under the railroad

and a freight train’s
ground-shaking metal

i climb into the sun
of mourning cloaks

the pale edges of their wings
dazzle like blades

as they chase and battle
over an open patch of ground

crossed by the shadows
of slow vultures

i come to a clearing where all
the oaks have died

paradise
for a pair of bluebirds

whose blink-and-you-miss-it copulation
releases a torrent of song

it is their golden hour
round and endless

here they will ravel detritus
into a nest

March 24, 2023November 8, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Homebody

the way a tendril winds
spiraling into steadfastness

clockwise or counter-clockwise
there’s wisdom in it

every time i circle my home ground
i grasp it a bit better

till i can wind through the house at night
without even having to see

hands and feet discover
how much they already know

not the exact number of steps
but the way they feel

iambic trochaic
anapestic spondaic

my feet and the ground
are old lovers after dark

i make a circuit of the trails
the milky way changes direction

thank-you-ma’ams dug last year
no longer make me stumble

but sometimes i forget where i am
and a moment of pure terror descends

and when sleep sits on my eyelids
other places i’ve known come back to me

or me to them legs twitching
taking their measure once more

though dream steps follow
a slower stranger rhythm

and sometimes in the morning i’ll ache
in unexpected places

March 23, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Fabulous

Today was a day for visions… though not necessarily a day for understanding. The light had a special quality to it, that early spring haziness.

It was a day bookended by thunderstorms. The temperature climbed into the low 60s.

A fire hydrant at the edge of town stood guard over a feral underground.

Near the crest of the ridge, I saw a tree eating a large rock.

I don’t like that someone did this but I can’t help but admire the tree’s response.

I’ve noticed this tree before, but not after a hard rain. Its eye of lichen really blazed forth, and its green suit of moss was fabulous.

The rain also accentuated the distinction between the two halves of this oak, one dead, the other very much alive. This too seems fabulous, in the specific sense that it reminds me of something out of a fable.

Lichens brighten in the rain. They open all their pores.

A dry strip of bark appears virtually lifeless in contrast to rain-soaked portions, where moss, algae and lichen have been revived.

But no one beats wood frogs for revivals. From suspended animation to full-on orgy. It boggles the mind.

March 21, 2023March 22, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Equinox

river in November light between bare woods and mountain

full sun but the sky’s
blue heart stays cold

as i pass the big rockslide
a wind-blown tree calls my name

just once
in my mother’s voice

i follow the ridge another mile
to the ephemeral ponds

frozen wood frog egg masses
glitter like nebulae in the dark water

and just beyond
the trees are raining grackles

with the sound of a vast
and rusty orchestra tuning up

i reach for my gloves
find the left one missing

the blackbirds are on all sides
landing on the ground
jostling in the treetops

lifting as if on a signal
from mob into synchronized flock

a great glossy wheel
here and gone

later at supper
my mother points out a black vulture
with its gray face

looking over my house
from a perch in a walnut tree

just then the spring
equinox arrives

i go off looking for
my lost winter glove

the sun makes its rendezvous
with the compass point

venus emerges
from hiding in plain sight
a barred owl calls

i follow the mountain
until it’s too dark to see

March 16, 2023March 16, 2023 by Dave Bonta

Weather or Not

cloud made of snow
the swirl and twirl of it

at night in a flashlight’s beam
like a swarm of souls

i’ve taken a break from breaking
news of bank runs

to stand on the porch and gaze
up into a well of darkness

cold little dagger-kisses
die on my cheek

the wind has come hissing
down from the ridgetops

and is getting into everything
i can hear it rummaging about

refusing to settle
as the snow does

or the dust indoors that clings
to my canted mirror

slowly burying
my image alive