Joshua McKinney
Transcendental
Through earthbound eye
the hawk in flight
maps the course of thought
aloft in circles
surveys new scenes
revisits the old impossible
to divine the way
it will incline
toward its intent
there all along and
now how straight
it falls to eat
Elsewhere
Within each accident,
very other under all conditions,
the light and life-script un-
noticed no-answer urge and
zoom like plastered, like
tucked, like
naked textures swim risen and fell-
wake in your dream of it
back in the hills
fumiture broken for the fire, water
flowing shrill to catch each
its ping and splendor-
and the small birds, after all,
are not so much about wishing
or the face you sketch without eyes
or the hand you flex to hold
all this rain.
Anon
the square of some measure
the rare
and slender stems
become an instrument
to flay fact
down to a level above
the actual I
thought I knew
the flowers here
startled at the word is alight on a hill
Joshua McKinney’s Saunter won the University of Georgia Press Contemporary Poetry Series Competition for 2001. He has poems forthcoming in American Letters & Commentary, Colorado Review, Kenyon Review, and elsewhere. He teaches at California State University – Sacramento.