Brian Swann has published more than 50 books, the latest of which are Autumn Road (Ohio State University Press, 2005), Snow House (Pleiades Press/Louisiana State University Press, 2005) and Algonquin Spirit: Contemporary Translations of the Algonquin Literatures of North America (University of Nebraska Press, 2005). He is poetry editor of OnEarth.

The Nature Poet Contemplates a Windfarm

Brecht once wrote a poem about the violent leafing of trees,
irreversible, before the city took over; about how there now
seem to be storms still, high above, but all they touch
is our aerials. As I look through washed air across
to the ridge that always sat down with me at dinner,
gray in winter, green in summer, it suddenly takes off
and moves around, a stately swoosh swoosh swoosh from higher
than Lady Liberty. There it goes, driving down the odd slow crow

or heron and real estate values. It's come to save us all
on a green hill that's not far away but right here
in my salad. The locals, a dozen families related
many times over, sit on all the boards, sell everything
they can and make fun of us refugees behind our backs.
Their ancestors would be proud, snoring in the lovely
graveyard above the white clapboard Old School Baptist church
with spectacular views they never had time to look at.
And those screws that dwarf the Titanic's swump on

round and round, pulling up the entire valley, sucking
it up -- remaining cows, some horses, a llama or two,
a bear, coyote, few bobcats, geese, rocks and stones and trees,
there they go, caught up by a slow-mo dervish, so they
don't know which end's up, and like me, who came
here seeking the still point of the turning world (Eliot), or
the deep heart's core (Yeats), they're probably way beyond irony.
-- Brian Swann

Aboriginal

I still recall the vivid windows clenched

in the sun like a passion you can't claim.
But as day breaks anew over the desert's
uncanny canvas, mountains open and close
like a knife. A tremor waits by the stunted
mimosa where whispers lead to more
whispers until by evening this scene is
again an ache as birds haul themselves out
of the wind. Beside the dimming lupins
on the hillside I thrust my head into

the branches of a pine: aboriginal murmurs
calling names, first loud, then whispers
that lead to more whispers, then silence.
-- Brian Swann

Meeting the Fox

When I met the fox today -- such living
gold in its eyes --
neither of us
moved though only

one of us was instantly taken up with
admiration. Its legs were
braced in their motion
of sudden stop,

its ears were pricked forward
to hear what my language might be,
but I said
nothing, there was no word for the

hope I had that we
could be friends. Behind it
the hillside, then the woods,
then the entire universe.

I stood as still as a rock.
I didn't know what to do.
Then I thought, oh well,
why not try, and I

held out my hands
in friendship, and instantly,
with a sharp bark, a very
decisive negative,

on its narrow and elegant feet,
back up the hillside
and into that other world
it flew.
-- Mary Oliver