Iowa Welcomes its New Poet Laureate- Robert Dana

This Time

A click. A bright wink. Lightning
out of a plain, grey midmorning sky,
as if the day had snapped its fingers.

Then how many long seconds of silence?
You realize you’re not breathing.
“Jesus,” you think, “they’ve got a nuke.”

And in your mind’s eye you see it,
swaying under its parachute as it floats
down. Then, the click, the twinkle.

You lower the half-read newspaper
to your lap, consider yellow autumn.
And then a roar like no other,

as if the earth itself had split open,
shuddering from its foundations.
You wait for the shock wave, the storm

of window glass, the firewind, that
microsecond before darkness blooms
simultaneously and everywhere.

But only blessed, ordinary rain
begins to fall. By lunch time, light
redeems the woods, the quiet street.

Your cat, Miss Futzy, emerges from
her shelter under your old desk.
Washed and preened now, she sits

upright and solid as a doorstop
or one of those classic Egyptian tomb
cats you see in the museums.

A black sun in the white sky of her
back, and an evening cloud coming on.
A black moon riding her right shoulder.

The calm regard of her green eyes.

Robert Dana, Iowa Poet Laureate
“The Morning of the Red Admirals”
Anhinga Press, 2004

The Morning of the Red Admirals
for D & L

We saw them first
last evening — two,
spiralling up
a column of late
sunlight, then,
tilting away
from each other
in a floating stagger
through the early
summer leaves —
a jittery dipping,
dropping, rising —
one coming
to rest a moment
on the still warm
roof of our fat
pagoda lantern,
the other on weathered
deck rail;
the tips of its
long antennae
beaded and bright;
wings black,
white dot
and blue dot,
and barred aslant
with orange red,
laid flat,
then clicking shut
to dull grey sail,
then opening again.
Now, it’s morning;
you’ve gone to work.
The air gleams,
dry and clear,
almost Greek,
and a half dozen
admirals sip
from the lilac blossoms,
still signalling
their unsayable
story. One
lights on my shoulder
as I hang the day’s
laundry on the line,
shirts and drawers,
dull socks,
our flapping colors
answering his.
He’s weightless,
this migrant —
a small, wild
scrap of grace —
and I’m his resting
post on the way
to whatever far
edge of creation
breathes at the tips
of his wings.

Robert Dana
"The Morning of The Red Admirals"
Anhinga Press, 2004