Observations on Earth Day

Starlings in America

The watchman stood alone on his blue hill

and watched, then, as he does now.

Saw them coming.

A few Vikings, some kook in a coracle.

He saw three ships come sailing in

from Spain.

They traded trinkets for coconuts and corn,

traded pox for potatoes.

A syphilitic wife will change your life.

The sun rises and the sun sets.

Their God was nailed to a tree

where they could keep an eye on him.

They brought original sin, brought a savior

and took silver, brought guns and took gold.

Brought alcohol, took tobacco.

They brought ponies and plunder,

were crazy for beaver

and a quick way to China.

In time, they brought steel and steam.

A steel knife will change your life, too.

The sun rises and the sun sets.

They brought bulldozers and drag-line buckets.

Tore the Earth.  Tore the Good Earth.

Put it on Mr. Peabody’s coal train.

  

Brought languages,

took languages away.

Brought starlings.

Brought Studebakers and Scotch Tape.

Duct tape and red tape.

They brought refrigerator magnets,

scotch and soda, the cotton gin, wrinkle –

free polyester.  Bourbon and Bud Lite and

a bomb that bloomed in the desert.

They taught children to hide under desks.

Atomic strife will change your life.

The sun rises and sets.

Edsels come and Edsels go.

The watchman stands alone on his blue hill.

Do not be hopeful,

he calls out at last,

but do not be without hope.

They brought Schubert.

~ Ralph Murre

Just Now

just now

as the planet still spins

with its endearing little wobble

and you

with that smile

and an air of possibility

just now

I think I'd like to live

to be very old

~ Ralph Murre

previously published in my collection, The Price of Gravity (Auk Ward Editions)

Preview

Here's an excerpt from something I'm working on:

. . . you have to know that in that time and place, they were Ma and Pa.  Most everybody's parents, unless they were thought to be putting on airs, were Ma and Pa.  Baths were taken on Saturday nights.  You went to church on Sunday mornings.  Yes you did.  Public schools were mostly walked to, had one classroom and two outhouses.  Catholic kids, though, were most likely to go to St. Michael's.  Several rooms.  Indoor plumbing.  Hail Mary, full of mackerel.  We all got along fine and settled minor differences with fistfights.

   In our little school, Miss Nedra Quartz held sway over the eight grades, or as many grades as had students in a given year.  She was it.  Teacher, nurse, theatrical director, janitorial overseer (we kids were the janitors), cop.  Palest woman I ever saw, when she wasn't red with rage, which was fairly often.
   And yes, we did walk to school.  Just a mile and a half for me, through snow and rain and dazzlements of all sorts, for a few years.  Then, Miss Quartz's brother bought a station wagon which became our schoolbus.  Comfy, but without dazzlement.  Unheard now, the curses of blackbirds, the scat-song blessings of bob-o-links.  Un-sniffed, the  wild roses in fencerows, as we traveled the graveled and dusty distance in a wood-sided Ford, assuming everybody in the whole world liked DDE, DDT, and Wonder Bread . . .     ~ Ralph Murre

Hunger Games

so much to observe

so much to comment upon

must he also eat?

~ arem

Flamingos del Norte

The Sky is Full of Bluebirds

but not everyone can see them
so they think it's just a blue sky,
and at night, when it's all crows --
well, you know.
And early and late
come the cardinals and flamingos,
but don't try to explain that
to just anyone.
There are gray birds, too.

~ Ralph Murre

first published in the calendar of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets

TRUE

A Few True Things

North, of course,
and blue,
which can’t be argued.
(Though I’ve never trusted black
and white, the supposed
absence of color,
or presence of all.)
Thirty-two degrees seems a truth
if you’re a fan of Fahrenheit,
zero, if you’re not.
There’s even a truth serum,
and true love has been reported,
but not a lot.
The ivory-billed woodpecker
is said to exist.
No great auks left, I guess;
not many little old ladies
driving to church.
Pontiac's gone.
Politicians aren’t
on this list.

~ Ralph Murre

Sad Truth

pigeons and poets

annoying but still happy

with just a few crumbs

~ arem

Three Two One

Three Great Lakes, two mighty nations, and one aging and slightly quixotic gentleman astride his good motorcycle, Rozinante; that pretty much sets the stage and introduces the cast for the little play I gave for the last six days (two without rain!) and 1650 miles. Windmills encountered? Yeah, plenty of them now, but you want to think twice before charging at them. Have you seen the size of these things, up close? Still, I'm Netherlandish enough to love 'em. And while some are now being built offshore, I think they look and ARE rather benign compared with the other offshore energy misadventures going on. Made two very small and unavoidable purchases at BP stations on the trip; what can you do when your tank is low and the next gas available is fifty or more miles away? That's how it is in the North Country.

photographs of loons

show he's not the only one

in the rain today

~ Ralph Murre

I'm very proud to say that my poem "All Right" now appears in Mobius, the Journal of Social Change. Check it out (yes, that IS an order) at http://mobiusmagazine.com/

bird in hand

soft in my fist
the indigo bunting
window stunned
regains itself
and
loses any need
for me if
there was any
its heart
machine rapid
with fear
or passion
or maybe
they're the same
its eyes bright
with flight
its wings ready
to push
all of this behind

my empty hand
having held
blue brilliiance

~ ralph murre

perhaps . . .

perhaps just our luck

that brought us this one condor

beyond its season

~ arem

Looking Up

LOOKING UP

Does the sky today
with its twelve cranes
neatly folded and calling
in gourd-throated rattles
look something like the sky
on that Friday I was born?

That day in 1944
our 386th bomber squadron
accidentally
hit a house in Belgium.

Was anyone home?
That’s important to know.
Were they aware
it was The Good War?
’cause that’s important to know.
And will folding a thousand cranes
really bring peace?
That’s important to know.

—Ralph Murre

first appeared in the Museletter of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets

Another Perspective

~ Ralph Murre

sputzies

the species of sputzies

(as the birds were known there)

would shit on your car,

would shit in your hair.

their music-less chirping

would go on all day,

as they'd perch in the barn

and shit in the hay.

the species of sputzies

(as english sparrows were called)

would shit in mid-air,

would shit on the bald.

we'd shoot 'em with bb's

and with slings and with arrows,

for we were young marksmen

and they were just sparrows.

the species of sputzies

(who just weren't very pretty)

were clouds over farms

and great swirls in the city.

they were good fun to shoot

and we had to learn killing,

for we'd enlist very soon

and we'd draft the unwilling.

the species of sputzies

(as we came home under flags)

still flew in great number

and we, in plain boxes,

slept underground slumber.

the hunted still fly

and the hunters still die,

and still,

the cold ground waits for summer.

- Ralph Murre

such a mourning

Silhouette

in this late winter

more slippery than ever

walking on the edge

- arem

something to crow about

I must say I like the flock I'm flying in over at

http://poetrydispatch.wordpress.com/2007/12/04/something-to-crow-about/

Patience

so darkly perched

to await the tide's offering

unloved cormorant

- arem

B & W

In Black and White

Like keys of ebony above the ivory’s glow
in the bright of a single spot, and
like the raven who scratches morning’s snow,
I play a somber tune.

Like wartime headlines screaming loss
in 48-point bold atop the page, and
like the black-dressed widow darning socks,
her chair and basket the only props;
this white-washed street the stage
where a leading man once stood,
I play a somber tune.

Sunlight and time may bleach the notes
and fade them from the page,
but ‘til there’s light in this dark mood,
I play a somber tune.

- Ralph Murre

Towhee and Murre

two birds

he rummages the wooded floor
noisy, these mornings
behaving exactly as the book
says he ought
yet, he's clearly his own bird
misbehaving
by the code of some

I rummage the crowded shelf
quiet, these nights
but cannot find the book explaining
my behavior
no field guide's colored illustration
looks like me
my code, perhaps, out of print

- Ralph Murre

'til death do us

a female cardinal
her soft brown dress
blending with fallen leaves
lies beneath my window

a male cardinal
balanced on balsam
resplendent in crimson contrast
is ill-dressed for grief