Songs from a Wild Place
poems Jason Kirkey
HIRAETH PRESS SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA Th is is an electronic version of Songs from a Wild Place by Jason Kirkey, provided free of charge or for a small donation. If you recieved this copy for free and have enjoyed it please consider visiting http://www.hiraethpress.com/jasonkirkey and making a small donation to support the author. You can download his other collections of poetry there as well. Printed copies are avail- able both direct from the publisher at http://www.hiraethpress. com and from most other online retailers. If nothing else, please consider passing this poetry on to others who might also enjoy it. Th ank you for reading. Copyright © 2007 Jason Kirkey
All Rights Reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages.
First Edition 2007 Online Edition 2009
Published by Hiraeth Press San Francisco, California www.hiraethpress.com To anyone who ever thought they could change the world with their art. Contents
I. The Self Silence 9 Who is the Poet? Who is the Pen? 10 Self Portrait: Brugh na Bóinne 11 Wonder at the Edge of Morning 13 Right Now 14 When Lightning Strikes the Heart 16 Migrations 18
II. The World The Old World 22 Song of the Center 24 Snowfall 26 It’s Not the Spring, It’s the Eyes that See It 28 Green is the Color of Awake 29 A Study of Seasons, Abstractly 30
III. “There is an edge…” Hillwalking 32 The Raven’s Task 35 Civil Disobedience 36 Why I Pray to Trees 38 Some Pure Everything 39 The Places that Are 41 What it Means to be Seen 43
IV. Haiku ‘Blades of grass’ 46 ‘The mind is the mountain’s’ 47 ‘Lost in mountain fog’ 48 ‘The black raven is not’ 49 ‘The path is no path’ 50 ‘The rough mountain’ 51 ‘Tress know the way’ 52 ‘Wind plays the leaves’ 53