Visitants

           Fox

Bright fox with rag of rabbit

dangling from jaws trots

clear of woods into space

between feeder and house.  Head

up, healthy, hello brush! he

flashes past our big windows.

We rush to bedroom to see

him pass, to see him pause

at head of path, but no,

it's under fence and across

meadow, out of sight behind

trees and winter grass.

                                          O fresh

fox, give us your clear light,

jaws and feet rabbit swift, fast

food held heading home, alive

and sure this cold morning.

            Infection

The song says I've got you under

my skin and there you entered a spider

bite or maybe poison ivy laced buckthorn

I was clearing, a black spot on my left

wrist surrounded by red swelling, tender

balloon of heat and itch soon taking over

my forearm with harbingers streaking

up past the inner elbow toward lymph nodes

in the armpit and beyond to the heart.

Surely it would pass because I'm so

reasonably healthy, but as with poetry

and love, my immunities and pure intentions

proved insufficient. Smaller water blisters

flowered beside the black spot, and soon

a swath of red across belly and chest

where I anointed myself in the shower.

I showed my proud wound to friends, who

murmured appropriate concern. The black

spot wept, blisters broke, and I badged

my spider kiss with gauze, took huge red

pills at conspicuously inconvenient times,

exaggerating the danger by mentioning

intravenous antibiotics. I rejoiced the itch

on my chest which I refused to scratch

with patience sublime and somehow Christian.

But under the ministering of time and pills

the red recedes to a sane domestic disturbance,

the kind that could happen to anyone, though

the rich purple of skin in the cold, the

lingering black heart scab and surrounding

volcanic skin scales make a pleasing story

of how deep and beautiful such wounds can go.

            Visitants

People who believe in God think I don’t understand,

but something must have sent us the startling blue

of an indigo bunting: a chip of light on a hickory

whose leaves are emerging from yellow-green pods,

then a swoop closer to the feeder where it pauses

to be photographed, though my religion says it’s blasphemy

to fix on film the radiant face of God. The same day

a scarlet tanager appears for one brief visit, outshining

the sun and the fierce beauty of blue jays and cardinals.

Then a summer tanager, with first year parrot-like reds,

oranges, olive greens and yellows. And eastern orioles

arrive, like Job’s messengers in reverse, bringing news

of blessings, riches restored, families united. The hand of God

reaches deep behind the cushions of His couch to bring us coins.

We fasten orange halves to the deck to lure these shimmering

visitants. Meanwhile, our regulars become angels: rose breasted

grosbeak with its bib, woodpeckers downy, hairy, and red bellied,

the ruby throated hummingbird this year more and brighter red,

the green back iridescent, the dartings random as grace. Even

the stupid mourning doves in all their clumsy dignity cull

the spectrum for hues to pay homage on this sacramental day.

It may be that third cup of coffee or the early flowers at last arriving.

None of this matters. Is this God or only like God? Does the Holy Spirit

flash and move on just outside my window, or does my caffeine jag

create a Ghost of serotonin? Paraclete or parakeet?

People who believe in God think I don’t understand,

and they are right, for who can fathom the appearance

of an indigo bunting one Sunday morning?