Arthur Vogelsang

Besides a generous sample of the author's first four books, this collection
contains Expedition, which was orginally conceived as a separate, full-length volume
and appears in its entirety as the New Poems section of this book,
a rare presentation we are excited about.

PALS
From some hysterical age before windows,
A four-syllable groan from an animal in a tree.
When we can see, we see a talented crow
Telling his partner a problem
And the other crow which is too big for a crow but
Is a crow is just as talented and groans once back
While squealing under his own groan like a doll. The problem
May be our neighbors’ two monstrous eucalyptus trees
Trimmed too much to the bare, or the slow fire
That has won over all ice
And that the crows are being radical about,
Or, bonded for decades, our ears,
Four human ears, are having a small collective delusional aural fit,
Or the crows are mocking what they’ve heard,
Saws, or ice screaming, or the people in the houses.