Anthony Lombardy
DRIVING ABROAD
Like maniacs in little, sprung, death traps
they drove without regard for yellow lines,
skinned past him on the road that wraps
around disaster, seaside cliffs and shrines,
so he drove fast himself, threw down his maps,
and was not killed nor much humiliated
and soon was racing only victory laps.
And when the need for things abroad was sated
in heavy clothes he drove his own big car.
On curves he slowed, and at the lights he waited,
And he paid strict attention to the signs
remarking at how wide the spaces are
but feeling how the ample fit confines
unlike that country where they ignore the lines.
THE ORNITHOLOGIST
He keeps a steady pace, with eyes for rain,
And so more conscious of the moving clouds.
Thoughts sweep him like the shadows of the doves
That slip so frailly through the yellow trees.
To learn each call, each crest and colored wing,
Mornings and evenings, wreathing the sky with omens,
Here augurs such a gallinaceous life:
Avoidant, brief, shuttered in forgotten notebooks.
Those woods were penetrated by scattered paths
That sometimes lead to skies in clearings where
One listener knew the name of every bird
That hid itself among the singing trees.
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