Robert Wrigley

April 4, 2020

“Why Should There Be Stars?” by Robert WrigleyPosted by

Robert Wrigley

WHY SHOULD THERE BE STARS?

Wallace Roney (May 25, 1960—March 31, 2020)

No one to talk to but a little bird, first
dusky flycatcher of the year, on the final day
of an eternal March. There’s snow falling,
and the bird’s unhappy about that.

Perched on the lee side of the tree,
it’s hunched and plumped,
and I’ve opened the window an inch,
so that it might listen, with me, to a slow, sad song.

The bird cocks its head when the trumpet comes in,
turns its body slightly, and its eyes look bright.
But its eyes always look bright and its song
isn’t much. The field guide says its five notes
consist of clip, whit, whee, wheep, and zee.

Though it never flies at night,
it surely knows why there should be stars.
Still, when the song ends, it bounces a bit
on the limb it’s perched on and seems
to want but doesn’t ask for more.

Today the great trumpeter died, at fifty-nine,
of the plague that sweeps the face of the earth.
The little bird and I listen on.
Every time the song ends, I ask “Again?”
and the bird just says zee, or whit, or wheep.

—from Poets Respond
April 4, 2020

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Robert Wrigley: “Jazz trumpeter Wallace Roney died this week of the virus. My heart is broken.” (web)

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January 30, 2019

“Rain” by Robert WrigleyPosted by

Robert Wrigley

RAIN

Before the invention of dew, sea spume,
and estuarial braiding; before the enactment
of the laws of evaporation, before nations
of fish and krill and empires of foam;
before the first shoe; before clouds
took the shapes of clouds; before sand.

After the tongue of the sun and root lick
tunneling, after cambium and fat
just under the hide; after the rat taught
a bird to sing; after the afterward
and the development of lees, after the wind
lay bare the coats of the billion skins.

Before the fall of the proud rain poured;
after the ascension of the eagle.
Before dawn did what it was made to do
with dew, after the advent of the rainbow;
before skins bathed in the skins.
After the first kiss, all the others.

—from Rattle #61, Fall 2018

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Robert Wrigley: “By this point in my life—I’m almost 67, retired from four decades of teaching—it feels like writing poems is still pretty much what it has always been for me: both a way of being alive, and a way of staying that way.” (web)

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January 28, 2019

“So We Meet Again” by Robert WrigleyPosted by

Robert Wrigley

SO WE MEET AGAIN

What are you doing here, snake?
Coiled atop a cold cistern
chilled by what fills it, your eyes,
which never close, covered by
a scale called a spectacle,
appear to be looking out
over the gully that drains
the spring, though your retinas,
which do close, may be shut tight.
It’s a brisk April morning.
I’m carrying a gallon 
of bleach to “treat” the system.
You lie there among the stones
that hold the cistern lid down.
so you will have to move now.
Or be moved. My first few prods
with a stick do not rouse you,
but the fifth or sixth one does,
and your tail full of rattles
springs up in its warning whir,
just beside your wedge of head.
And when I poke you again,
all your winded coils respond
at once in every direction
and simultaneously
in order to propel you
southward, over cistern lip
and into the five-foot drop
to the muddy ground below,
where you stay a little while,
stunned and probably still cold.
Splash from the overflow pipe
cannot help in this regard,
but I’ve brought a bucket too,
to dip out ten or fifteen
gallons and let the chlorine
do its poisonous business
without excess dilution.
I confess I am tempted
to toss the first bucketful
on you, to drive you away,
but I’ve already disturbed
your sleep, if that’s what it was,
and you are beautiful there,
shimmering in the spring mud.
And by the time I replace
the cistern lid and the stones,
the slenderest shaft of sun
has breached the dense canopy
above us and shines on you
and warms you enough you move
in slow elegant esses
down into the narrowing
gully, where you’ll spend your day
waiting, among blackberries,
ferns, and blossoming sumac,
for a mouse, much less watchful
than I am, to blunder by.

—from Rattle #61, Fall 2018

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Robert Wrigley: “By this point in my life—I’m almost 67, retired from four decades of teaching—it feels like writing poems is still pretty much what it has always been for me: both a way of being alive, and a way of staying that way.” (web)

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