Robert's memorial is next Tuesday at White Rock Lake. I spent the weekend going thru his books finding poems for his widow that could be read as a prayer at the tribute. Several readers have been clicking over to this site thru the Zafusy portal in England. For those of you who aren't familiar with Robert's work, here are some of his poems. We in Dallas are working on assembling his collected....
From Birds (Barnburner Press, 2003)
My Bird Clock Sings 20 House Wrens Past the Finch
Cats scratch my
window screen
Is it time
to cross over
or to feed the cats?
It is 9:20
It doesn't matter if it's day or night
(I started kissing everything in sight)
until the prettiest Painted Bunting
strikes 10
& the chariot arrrives.
Swing low
coming for to carry me
But the reason the males sing what they sing is that females favor those birds that sing the longest, most complex songs.
Birds & Death
I've seen a picture
of small blue birds flying
from the mouth of a man
dying.
But I can't remember where I saw it.
I asked a friend
who works with Oriental art
at the Kimbell Musem in Ft Worth
if he knew what the picture was & he said
The museum has a statue of a dying man
with notes of a song leaving his mouth.
I said Maybe that's it.
Did the notes have wings?
& were they blue?
He asked No but would you like to hear the song?
I said I don't think so. Not yet.
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