CLEARCUT
Why this din
these boughs nervous with birds more
descending out of the sky crowding into the last tree
for miles trilling
like a green lathe the crush
and cluster of wings bursting forth circling and plunging
back onto the limbs
their only perch they have come
to ease their shoulders before flying on manic clamorous
the craunching
and revving sounds they’ve learned
traveling among us a feathery host spattering the leaves
a jittery
choir atonal off the hinges
their fierce singing their recognizable desperate psalm.
SECOND NATURE
2008, University of Washington Press
Second Nature is a rich, ample, wide-ranging, mature work, showing this probing, watchful poet at peak strength. For Witte, poetry is often the same as flight and singing are for a bird, a simple, natural union of form and function that gives lift and grace.
-Floyd Skloot
John Witte
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