No one looks twice at a sparrow or squirrel . . .
but a peregrine falcon or mountain lion is a
lifetime experience. –Edward O. Wilson

Just yesterday morning Jack was reading on the deck
when what well might be the fourth
perched itself on the lowest limb of the nearby oak
and interrupted with “a strain
of invective that was irresistible.”

Two years ago the third startled him–having slipped
off a branch thirty feet above, it plopped
one stride ahead of him and lay splashed–
though, quick as a sidestep, a spasm
thrashed it back on its feet.

The second
surprised him in the fall of 1969
in Lafayette Square when it darted out of the way
by climbing his trousers
up to his thigh.

And the fall he was four
the first so frightened him by lying stiff
and half buried in the wet leaves of a gutter
that he jerked free from his mother’s hand
and dashed halfway across the honking street.

______________________________________

Born in Columbia, Missouri, William Aarnes grew up in Fargo, North Dakota (his house blew away in 1957). He now lives with his wife in Clemson, South Carolina, and teaches at Furman University.

Have Another Beer With Dark Sky

Fear don’t care about you. They sure as hell don’t care about SNL. But we care about fear. It’s a spooky weekend, and it’s a spooky world. Avant-garde music strikes fear, while modern art usually does not. June Glasson’s work is the exception — feminist art can be quite threatening to the male hegemony. Lord Byron pushed the conventions of his time, which caused a little fear, but none in a clergyman named Francis Hodgson. Journalists are already in terrifying times, but now the courts are coming after them. Finally, Haymarket Books seems to be the only press that is not afraid of progressive politics and sports. Trick or treat. – Andrew Geer

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