Fierce Echoes
2015; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 123; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/sew.2015.0084
ISSN1934-421X
Autores ResumoFierce Echoes Floyd Skloot (bio) Sky Dance —Portland, Oregon Back from Mexico the thinmale osprey climbsthrough swirling spring windto hover over the river. Banded tail fanned, a fishdangling from his talons,he undulates withinthe currents. Last year’s nest perched on a power polebelow him is empty still,but he is sure his matemust arrive. So he dives and swoops back up,crooked wings ripplingas he flies loops withinthe fierce echo of his cries. [End Page 380] Fender’s Blue The evening distance is a shade of blueI have not seen before. Cottonwood treesalong the riverbank have lost their leaveslike this every year and let light throughwith the same stirring of wind in their tops.The sky reminds me of the ospreys’ criesagain, their frenzied parting shriek that stopsme in my tracks year after year and staysin the dense dark air, refusing to fade.But this year the river and clouds callto mind the heron’s plumage in full molt,ragged and gray across the current. Boldblack and white soars only where sightis edged with reflection by the coming night.It feels as though I have gotten too oldfor the hues I can remember. This fallthose stars may be the last Fender’s bluebutterflies anyone will see around here. A Season of Killdeer We follow the riverbank southpast abandoned dock pilingsand a crumbling concrete pier. At the field’s edge to our westa season of killdeer performsroutine hysterics, spooked byan off-leash cocker spaniel.They drag a drooping wingacross the ground, tumbleover themselves and breakinto a sprint meant to lead usall from their nesting ground. [End Page 381] But the rising sun is a spotlightcatching them, no matterwhere they turn. From homea half mile away we’d heardtheir cries in the middle ofthe night. The high sharpscreeches became a bubblingtrill of pure terror that seepedthrough our dreams and broughtus out into this summer dawn. Island My father was a man of winter night.He was early darkness, sharp winds, black iceon the last curve home, and sudden strange lightfrom a Full Wolf Moon when it starts to rise.My mother was a woman of force twelvewinds out of nowhere. She was huge waves, airfilled with driving spray, storm feeding on itselfand hurling debris as it hovered there,a mass of fury, unable to move.We lived on an island with no bridgesleft standing. The mainland was lost in mistmost of the time or glimpsed at the edgesof sight for a second, gaudy as a wish,out of place, still as nothing else I knew. [End Page 382] Floyd Skloot Floyd Skloot’s eighth collection of poems, “Approaching Winter,” will be published this fall by the lsu Press, who also published his collections The End of Dreams, a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize, and The Snow’s Music. Skloot’s work has received three Pushcart Prizes and the pen USA Literary Award. He lives in Portland, Oregon. Copyright © 2015 Floyd Skloot
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