Pastoral as Complaint, poem by Bruce Weigl

PASTORAL AS COMPLAINT
by Bruce Weigl

           The robin is so quarrelsome. He barks to no one in the trees; 
he fluffs his body twice its size and rattles in the leaves.
           He doesn’t know or won’t accept the nest is empty now,
the eggs a tatter on the ground. The storm was quick, 
           we didn’t see it come; no sound above the hum

a summer morning makes when god is in his place
           and we are free of tragedies that pile up along the way.  
The robin is so quarrelsome; 
           he thinks his life is gone just like the nest,
but he’s like the rest of us, it’s only just begun.

Photo: colonial1637(off & on)’s, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Bruce Weigl served in Vietnam in 1967 and 1968 and was awarded a Bronze Star. His first full-length collection of poems was published in 1979. He has received two Pushcart Prizes, a Patterson Poetry Prize, and a Yaddo Foundation Fellowship. Weigl was awarded the Bread Loaf Fellowship in Poetry in 1981 and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1988. He was also nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in 1988 for Song of Napalm.

My Autumn Leaves, poem by Bruce Weigl

MY AUTUMN LEAVES
by Bruce Weigl

I watch the woods for deer as if I’m armed.
I watch the woods for deer who never come.
I know the hes and shes in autumn
rendezvous in orchards stained with fallen
apples’ scent. I drive my car this way to work
so I may let the crows in corn believe
it’s me their caws are meant to warn,
and snakes who turn in warm and secret caves

they know me too. They know the boy
who lives inside me still won’t go away.
The deer are ghosts who slip between the light
through trees, so you may only hear the snap
of branches in the thicket beyond hope.
I watch the woods for deer, as if I’m armed.

 Photo by Honorable and Bold. 

“My Autumn Leaves” is found in My Unraveling Strangeness, Bruce Weigl’s 2002 poetry collection from Grove Press. Find the book at Amazon.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Bruce Weigl entered the U.S. Army at age 18 and served in Vietnam for one year, beginning in December 1967. He was awarded the Bronze Star and returned to his hometown of Lorain, Ohio. He earned his BA at Oberlin College, his MA at the University of New Hampshire, and his PhD at the University of Utah. Weigl is the author of more than a dozen books of poetry, including The Unraveling Strangeness (2002), Archeology of the Circle: New and Selected Poems (1999), and After the Others (1999). Weigl has won the Robert Creeley Award, the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry, the Paterson Poetry Prize, the Poet’s Prize from the Academy of American Poets, the Cleveland Arts Prize, and two Pushcart Prizes. Song of Napalm (1998) was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. He has also been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Yaddo Foundation. His latest work, Among Elms in Ambush, will be released on September 14, 2021.

Home, poem by Bruce Weigl

HOME
by Bruce Weigl

I didn’t know I was grateful
            for such late-autumn
                        bent-up cornfields
 
yellow in the after-harvest
            sun before the
                        cold plow turns it all over
 
into never.
            I didn’t know
                        I would enter this music
 
that translates the world
            back into dirt fields
                        that have always called to me
 
as if I were a thing
            come from the dirt,
                        like a tuber,
 
or like a needful boy. End
            Lonely days, I believe. End the exiled
                         and unraveling strangeness. 

“Home” appears in Bruce Weigl’s collection The Unraveling Strangeness by Bruce Weigl, published by Grove/Atlantic. Copyright © 2003 by Bruce Weigl. All rights reserved.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Bruce Weigl served in Vietnam in 1967 and 1968 and was awarded a Bronze Star. His first full-length collection of poems was published in 1979. He has received two Pushcart Prizes, a Patterson Poetry Prize, and a Yaddo Foundation Fellowship. Weigl was awarded the Bread Loaf Fellowship in Poetry in 1981 and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1988. He was also nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in 1988 for Song of Napalm.

Photo: “After the corn harvest” by Cindy Dietz, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

My Autumn Leaves, poem by Bruce Weigl

MY AUTUMN LEAVES
by Bruce Weigl

I watch the woods for deer as if I’m armed.
I watch the woods for deer who never come.
I know the hes and shes in autumn
rendezvous in orchards stained with fallen
apples’ scent. I drive my car this way to work
so I may let the crows in corn believe
it’s me their caws are meant to warn,
and snakes who turn in warm and secret caves
 
they know me too. They know the boy
who lives inside me still won’t go away.
The deer are ghosts who slip between the light
through trees, so you may only hear the snap
of branches in the thicket beyond hope.
I watch the woods for deer, as if I’m armed. 

 Photo: Mark P. Jones, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

“My Autumn Leaves” is found in My Unraveling Strangeness, Bruce Weigl’s 2002 poetry collection from Grove Press. Find the book at Amazon.com.

Folktale, poem by Bruce Weigl

FOLKTALE
Poem by Bruce Weigl

Nineteen fifty-seven: you
            remember the fins,
don’t you,
            on the baby-
blue-and-white Bel Air?
            Beyond the pigeon coop of ghosts,
beyond the
            many-colored rabbits
penned for the evening
            by the tap-tap
 
of the old man’s cane, you can see
            another man
through the muslin iof time
            throw his baby
high into the air. Women
 
            scream from the porch, laughing.
Oh, the night is thick with blossoms
            from the blue plum tree,
and this man is full of liquor
            and of his own young life,
 
so he throws his baby boy
            high into the sky
as it is taken by evening
            Irrevocably away from them
so that it seemed
            that I would not come down. 

NOTE: “Folktales” appears in The Unraveling Strangeness (2002), a poetry collection by Bruce Weigl. (Available at Amazon.com.) Critic Denise Levertov called Weigl “one of the best poets now writing in America.”

Home, Poem by Bruce Weigl

HOME  by Bruce Weigl

I didn't know I was grateful for such late-autumn bent-up cornfields yellow in the after-harvest sun before the cold plow turns it all over into never. I didn't know I would enter this music that translates the world back into dirt fields that have always called to me as if I were a thing come from the dirt, like a tuber, or like a needful boy. End Lonely days, I believe. End the exiled and unraveling strangeness.

From The Unraveling Strangeness by Bruce Weigl, published by Grove/Atlantic. Copyright © 2003 by Bruce Weigl. All rights reserved.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Bruce Weigl served in Vietnam in 1967 and 1968 and was awarded a Bronze Star. His first full-length collection of poems was published in 1979. He has received two Pushcart Prizes, a Patterson Poetry Prize, and a Yaddo Foundation Fellowship. Weigl was awarded the Bread Loaf Fellowship in Poetry in 1981 and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1988. He was also nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in 1988 for Song of Napalm.

###

Happy January 27th birthday to Bruce Weigl! 

Photo: “After the corn harvest” by Cindy Dietz, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Folktale, Poem by Bruce Weigl

FOLKTALE

Poem by Bruce Weigl

Nineteen fifty-seven: you

            remember the fins,

don’t you,

            on the baby-

blue-and-white Bel Air?

            Beyond the pigeon coop of ghosts,

beyond the

            many-colored rabbits

penned for the evening

            by the tap-tap

 

of the old man’s cane, you can see

            another man

through the muslin iof time

            throw his baby

high into the air. Women

 

            scream from the porch, laughing.

Oh, the night is thick with blossoms

            from the blue plum tree,

and this man is full of liquor

            and of his own young life,

 

so he throws his baby boy

            high into the sky

as it is taken by evening

            Irrevocably away from them

so that it seemed

            that I would not come down. 

NOTE: “Folktales” is found in The Unraveling Strangeness (2002), a poetry collection by Bruce Weigl. (Available at Amazon.com.) Critic Denise Levertov called Weigl “one of the best poets now writing in America.”

Pastoral as Complaint, Poem by Bruce Weigl

PASTORAL AS COMPLAINT

Poem by Bruce Weigl

           The robin is so quarrelsome. He barks to no one in the trees; 
he fluffs his body twice its size and rattles in the leaves.
           He doesn’t know or won’t accept the nest is empty now,
the eggs a tatter on the ground. The storm was quick, 
           we didn’t see it come; no sound above the hum

a summer morning makes when god is in his place
           and we are free of tragedies that pile up along the way.  
The robin is so quarrelsome; 
           he thinks his life is gone just like the nest,
but he’s like the rest of us, it’s only just begun.

Photo: colonial1637(off & on)’s, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

My Autumn Leaves, Poem by Bruce Weigl

MY AUTUMN LEAVES

Poem by Bruce Weigl

I watch the woods for deer as if I’m armed.

I watch the woods for deer who never come.

I know the hes and shes in autumn

rendezvous in orchards stained with fallen

apples’ scent. I drive my car this way to work

so I may let the crows in corn believe

it’s me their caws are meant to warn,

and snakes who turn in warm and secret caves

 

they know me too. They know the boy

who lives inside me still won’t go away.

The deer are ghosts who slip between the light

through trees, so you may only hear the snap

of branches in the thicket beyond hope.

I watch the woods for deer, as if I’m armed. 

Photo: Mark P. Jones, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

###

“My Autumn Leaves” is found in My Unraveling Strangeness, Bruce Weigl’s 2002 poetry collection from Grove Press. Find the book at Amazon.com.