Two big geese can
                            scare up the dead.

              — August Kleinzahler, “Canada Geese in New Jersey”

              Mid-March.
The long, wet winter hasn’t
              moved on yet.

              They’re still out there
in the slough, dark-bound,
              rain-pressed, raising

              an awkward hell,
maybe ten, maybe a hundred
              for all the racket,

              big Canada geese,
honking in high form at 6 A.M.,
              spooked by something,

              an otter or harbor
seal working high tide, maybe just
              their own surliness,

              too many of them
to get through the night silently,
              or something’s in

              the air, the season
starting to change, a long, long
              journey waiting

              when the first one
knows that it’s time to head
              north. I can’t sleep

              either, restless
myself, dinner alone, one
              glass of wine

              too many, my
own deep brain stirred up by
              lurking shadows.

              and the long trip
I still have to take. I try different
              positions, then

              crack the window
and listen to more of their raucous
              conversation. Spring

              out there somewhere,
and the next home for us all just a few
              journeys away.

                            Puget Island, Washington

This poem previously appeared in “Windfall,” a publication specializing in poetry relating to places in Oregon.

(for Verlena Orr)

I would rather kiss
hands.
Hands have done
everything:
been cold
and burned;
caressed and braced
against a fall.
Hands are dangerous:
have become fists,
instinctively; gripped
knives in anger,
released bombs; hands
have felt pulse and pressed
desperately
against wounds.
Hands have worn paint,
grease, the pungency
of garlic, scent of fresh
sex. Hands
have been hidden
in pockets,
left awkwardly exposed.
Hands have bathed
children, lowered the dead.
Hands have scars
where they have been cut
preparing meals; have held
shovels, planted seed,
counted out change,
signed over fortunes,
condemned lives.
Hands have slammed
the door before there
could be answers,
squeezed
the gate-latch open,
touched the starter,
given the downbeat,
stopped traffic.
Hands have shaded
eyes, looking out
to sea, reached
when no one
was there.
Lips…
yes, lips, but
I would rather
kiss hands. 

This poem came about during a workshop taught by Portland poet Verlena Orr many years ago.  The prompt for one session was a small replica of the Rodin sculpture “The Kiss,” but this poem went  astray and focused on hands.  

April is National Poetry Month, and there I was, April 13, 10 a.m., reading a poem by C.K. Williams, the one about how he would like to write a poem for every girl in the world and how everyone — children, congressmen, men in the woods, workers on the assembly line — should have a poem, should see one swing by on the hoist, should have one float down to them like a feather, find one written out on the underside of a turned stone… just the surprise of knowing that there are, out of nowhere, poems that are their poems alone, that their poems can be held inside of them and that there are poems there inside of them, and how many poems it would take for everyone to know that, and how little time there is… anyway, that poem was printed out on a whiteboard propped on an easel outside the Pakistani fast-food place on Third Street in downtown Seattle, and I think it was out there for me and was mine alone, and it was, in fact, a day that was like a poem, written with a soft west wind off the Sound and magnolia trees blooming, and maples still barren but finally with buds, and young women in coffee shops, on every corner it seemed, after all it was downtown Seattle, and there was work to be done, of course work to be done, on the downtown streets and in the towers and in the harbor and in the soft air… and that’s why I was in Seattle, after all, work to be done, and without work to be done what would be the point of stopping to read my C.K. Williams poem printed on a whiteboard propped on an easel outside the Pakistani fast-food place, or anywhere a poem turned up or floated down or swung by or appeared on the side of a bus or in a cloud’s form or written by a soft west wind sweeping across the sound… and I figured, yes, that was my poem, put there for me so I’d stop and understand how many poems there were yet to write, so I might sit down that evening and write one, only one, but that would be one less on the back of poor C.K., and who knows, perhaps the next person with work to do who stopped and read his or hers would get home, perhaps after flying back to Portland, or right here in Seattle, sitting alone in a bar after an early-season Mariners game, and that person would write one also and, little by little, all the beautiful girls and every person would have their own poem, and I would have mine.