Changes
Under the waterfall
Leaves finally reach
Bottom and stay put,
Every known foliage
Puffed into a hive
May strike you dizzy
When the sun is on them
And water above flows
Clear, the shaken colors
Point into your eyes
Self-Employed
Take two squared stones and
Drop them almost side by side
Lift the thinner slab of rock and
Bust your guts setting it on top
Now you got reason to sit down
Bobolink
He watches my entry
Down the tilt of pasture
Clumps of mud sinking rubber boots,
Chain saw load and fuel jugs,
Holds an eye on me
In his one position.
When I set to work he sets to work,
Drops off the long spring of
telephone wire.
Through the day picks at brush
piles, goes
Back onto the wire, withstands the
heat, watches.
It is only when the saw is shut
down I hear what
He says, the scale of whistles both
sharp
And gentle to the ear, no one pitch
alike, perhaps
The voice of many birds together,
in this new one who
Treeplanter
Never
see how —
But
see how —
The
pine tree
Has
grown a foot
Since
a year ago
_________________
Bob Arnold
some of these poems appeared in
Self-Employed
handset letterpress from
Pentagram
