(1)

A maverick wind sweeps Allamakee

county & leaves an aura of

mandolins in country intricacy,

of all sounds the most precise.

Iowa mandarins drive out to see

their country places in a

shifting rain, still

as glass, an approximation of stasis

which means no movement.

No movement is as random as dust's

blowing down the Upper Iowa

Valley, this very moment, brooming

& cleaning, sweet July emerges intimately--

A maverick wind sweeps Allamakee

(2)

I am in a room

& the ghost of John Sjoberg sits across from me

across the table from me, across the teacups

not his ghost but rather his presence

reserved & puffing clouds

                                                  MCDONALD'S TOBACCO

following tangles to their ultimate solutions

investigating evidence, expressing beliefs

in the vast magnitude of his speaking, his continuance

his talk is like kitestring

unraveled in his hands

                                                  ONE QT. "OLD STYLE"

there are secret places in the woods

he wishes to tell me of

he has shown me these places

but I have forgotten where they are

only to discover one of them today

when I went to Hickory Hill

& found a shagbark

                                                  ABADIE.  PARIS

& ran down treacherous eroded pathways

& walked over green swards

& noticed whippoorwill calls

& tiny violets scattered underfoot

distant thunder, light rain

the flowering iowa bushes

some magic behind it all

                                                 (Sjoberg's)

(3)

We speak of passenger pigeons

& dust.  Audubon's painting

is there, a gift to him.

The pigeons, wing-blue in

jeweled innocence, numbered

and named in Latin.  John

notes that the male feeds

the female & smiles.  The birds

conjoin on a branch laden

with dying leaves.  The dust,

he says, simply blows away