untitled by Arthur Durkee

raven floats in morning wind
above a sea of grass

howling wind outside my door
begging to get in
long night terrors, fury's call
gone in morning light
linger still behind rough clouds
moving fast and tight

raven silent in the sky
all sound drowned in wind

picture mountains gray and dun
bare tree on the ridge
piebald sun and shadow cloud
red side-wall canyons iced
picture groaning pines bent down
giving birth to wind



Arthur Durkee, USA

Snow Pilgrim by Arthur Durkee

Snow drives in around the porch edges. Puffs of whitegrained breath, fallen on uninsulated floors, to drift. The local definition of a blizzard asks how horizontal the snow falls. Green and white the red cardinal's shelter. Gray squirrel, puff-cheeked, clutches the topmost spruce bough, bouncing in the wind, to reach the tree's last cones. Rabbit tracks dash lines between trees.

a quiet rest
in between mountain hikes,
the trailman's lodge


Seeking a festival more quiet, more contemplative, the old poet ties up his knapsack, goes out into the snow, boots laced high over wool, hat and mittens braced upwind. Any direction as good, in this whiteout. Where the road shelfs over the cutbank of river's loop, he stops to watch heavy flakes streak through whipping blackoak branches across the oxbow slope. Memorizing calligraphy of lines of trees clouded behind snow, because too cold for inkstone and brush. Flakes tick on already frozen drifts, winds hiss the boughs, somewhere off upstream a bluejay shrieks. All other silences converge. Walking stick and knapsack, uproad, vanishing. Fade to white.

line of footfalls lost
under fresh fallen snow,
no one left to see




Arthur Durkee, USA

antler by Arthur Durkee

antler bone found in the grass
speaks of lost deer rituals, their religion of seasons
and blood

dance of hoof and antler, horn and fur ruff
circle of apple trees full of bees
and the tender undying evergreens

horn-handed deer staff a dance ritual for young bucks
while old men sit blanket-wrapped watching
sweat-braced flanks they used to know

we rub our bodies with suet and red clay
we dance the deer in spring and autumn
becoming those bones found in the grass

edges of the field at dusk still full of bees
where deer stop to stare, then walk on
suddenly doubled with ghosts of the ancestors


Arthur Durkee, USA

Wintermind by Arthur Durkee

Now winter. Fallen leaves still on the walk. We stand talking in the road, kicking leafpiles to see them fly, then wander down to the river. This cruel wind. No hat on, the drizzle soaks my head, hair in my eyes, drops going down the back of my collar. Spinning red maples fall over in brash display, scuff and shatter. The sky glooms and lowers. Somewhere I lost my way.

rain turns to wet snow
ducks thrash turgid black waters—
my eyes washed by tears

**************************************************************************************************
When the singer died, I was in the desert. Canyons filled with light, fresh snow, sublime tender evergreens. The silence deepened by memories, now that you've gone. Then, an echo of jays. Looking up, turkey vultures circled over dry arroyos, red earth broken by snow patches. Looking down, even the chollo seemed hunched over. Will we ever play again together? Perhaps in the western lands, beyond the sea.

guitar of dead leaves
scattering gusts of music—
mute song of passing


Arthur Durkee, USA

Untitled by Arthur Durkee

If you hold yourself still, the fox
will always come to you. She moves
silent through dusk, across sudden lawn,
a natural gap between bush and cliff.
She is wary, ears up, nose alert. She skips
lightly, pauses to flick her tail, then
disappears, streak of red and black.
There’s a waterfall, bitter, cold, she sips
when night pauses; a deep water seep
from between rocks that remember dinosaurs
and birth-cries of lost volcanoes, gone
before this beach, this river were here.
An owl calls, very close overhead, between
meadow and shore, moving towards beach;
fox freezes, her tail and belly low-slung to soil,
red blur blending into dusk-toned fireweed,
and waits for owl to pass. If you can shape
yourself into stone, slow-breathing juniper,
your palm cupped to hold rain, and be silent
for endless days, the fox will come to you, sip
cold water, lap your lifeline. Don’t look at her
direct, be a peripheral vision of your own self,
flicker of red and black in lung, heart, artery;
and she will come, tentative, hesitant, but
curious. Become moss, become invisible,
become as ancient as the dreams of cliffs.
If you hold yourself still, the fox will come.


Arthur Durkee, USA

Brown Man by Arthur Durkee

Rise up falling, corn-sheaves bunched gather rustling stacks by porch swing pillar gate, tan brown still green, green man greening fading to browning man brown cornstalk effigy, leaffall crackle redtouch handscorched bright mark crumble. Old year humus sweat water shell, fill soak forest floor, redbird chitter pine call. Tone of oakleaf belling tree, chime of branch on trunk. Matted brow unfold from mushroom-capped tree-crook. Tamarack and fire maple, twine wind twist vinehair eye open to aching blue of sky. Pines laugh unfallen. Sudden torso, mossed limbs. Heart leaves opening, petaled fingers spread reach grasp out to touch. Wrapped in brown stag cloak and river shimmer, tired eyes drooping towards winter, dissolve merge burrow sink in leaf loam, wild turkeys fly between bare tree branches high over red amber moonrise.

acorn, dream deep
of land soon covered, still:
memories of snow


Arthur Durkee, USA