After Lorca
the red-winged blackbird
sings, but not to call his pied-brown mate
or a cattail congerie—
he sings to be singing: he sings
the red-winged blackbird
sings, but not for the ever-returning spring,
or other springs, gone by—
he sings to be singing: he sings
the red-winged blackbird
sings, not to recall in us some preternatural
nature of things:
he sings
Blackbird, Red-Winged
Agelaius phoeniceus
Notes
Adopting the form of a poem by the Spanish modernist poet Lorca, the poet here idealizes the bird unconscionably, imagining that it is motivated to sing out of some purely art-for-art's sake impulse. One even doubts whether this bookish South Dakota poet has ever been outdoors long enough to hear the red-wing in its natural habitat. This is really silly stuff.