Fox-Sparrow

Abstract

Fox-Sparrow James McCorkle (bio) What is known, comesabrupt, jump-cut to here, then gone— one, banded, caught and released, was tenhow many migrationsfrom conifer forests south or blown across the north Atlantic to Iceland or Greenland, scrabblein the Orkneys, a vagrant there fox-red bandings, with fox-gray hooding,autumn chrysanthemums clutteredwith maple leaves waiting for the cherry to drop its last gold leaves— what to be attentive tothis autumn, howto be attendingto the song, the arc before time runs to its one last dark stop— to pick out essential markings rememberedfrom the guide, is to pick outdifferences, when ranges overlap and geography is song— Due south, through shale hills, crossing intoSusquehanna and Delaware watersheds [End Page 99] flare-light in the hardwoods and tonight I read Wei Ying-wu, who wrote the jade diggeron the Lan Riversleeps in the cold thicket conscript to dig, one from each familyto dig out the verdantstone, moss stone, Wei watches the vanishingriver, the moon bell-struck and the conscript's wife, miles south, he wrote in 775, weepsin the cold hut, husbandgone for months— in hard times, hoe the garden of stones eat the print of a tiger in the snow sip from the vanished river above before dawn take from one hand and place in the otherthe light of a lantern, the only gold we have on this path— everything travels, slippagesthrough shale, fissured and laced, pores of seep and migration upwards into limestoneand aquifer, vagrant element in the rock, displaced and shunted up, methane rings, carbon releases, condensingsof time and mass— tanker-trucks on the gravel access roads, deep intothe hardwoods, the clear-cut for long-haulsto flush the toluene and radium from the wells' slick water— the snow starts to fall, in the high ridgesthe whippoorwills have left their calls in the leaf litter, and buckshot cans [End Page 100] surveyors' lines, posted signs shot-out with "who the fuck cares" in dotted Morse and contrailslash of white across the sky, all the leavingsoracles of what came to be, passed the one truth that continues its seep, bloodline drip, a melodythat holds a tune, one sound the unwrapping of stars— Wei Ying-wu whispers to me, to slip into a boat, with the early snowand oar into the lake's long reach chrysanthemums still bloom in the cold, come back,show me your feelings wine has no taste when drinking alone— the lake a sheen of gray, early snow, geesegray and white risefrom the waters as a single liftingand down-pressingof wings, like a rush of summer rain across the water the years are migrations, each one to the north again, the workof creation never stops, the green half-moons scalethe bare lilac, the viburnum's green knots on leafless branches—the foxsparrow lands, flying south, its song to teach to singno destination, onlydirection, sparrow in the barebush, watches me, readied to fly, and gone— a bowl of air where its song was held. [End Page 101] James McCorkle James McCorkle is a poet and editor. His books of poetry include Evidences, recipient of the American Poetry Review / Honickman Award, and The Subtle Bodies. He is also author of The Still Performance, a study of post-modern American poetry, the editor of Conversant Essays: Contemporary Poets on Poetry, and an associate editor of The Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Poets and Poetry. He has received fellowships from the Ingram Merrill Foundation and the NEA and co-directs the Africana Studies Program at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York. His forthcoming book is In Time. Copyright © 2019 University of Hawai'i Press