Audubon's Flute

Traveling again in April, 2013.  The beautiful, open spacious skies above our open spaces.
This part of the country had not really opened up for travel in Audubon's time.
I had forgotten that Audubon was musical; it has been several years since I read
Audubon; the making of an American by Richard Rhodes, Random House, 2004,
a book that I strongly recommend!

Audubon's Flute

Audubon in the summer woods
by the afternoon river sips
his flute, his fingers swimming on
the silver as silver notes pour

by the afternoon river, sips
and fills the mosquito-note air
with silver as silver notes pour
two hundred miles from any wall.

And fills the mosquito-note air
as deer and herons pause, listen,
two hundred miles from any wall,
and sunset plays the stops of river.

As deer and herons pause, listen,
the silver pipe sings on his tongue
and sunset plays the stops of river,
his breath modeling a melody

the silver pipe sings on his tongue,
coloring the trees and canebrakes,
his breath modeling a melody
over calamus and brush country,

coloring the trees and canebrakes
to the horizon and beyond,
over calamus and brush country
where the whitest moon is rising

to the horizon and beyond
his flute, his fingers swimming on
where the whitest moon is rising.
Audubon in the summer woods.

Robert Morgan

in The Language They Speak Is Things to Eat; 
poems by fifteen contemporary North Carolina Poets, 
University of North Carolina Press, 1994, pages 192-193.

This poem has a formal structure repeating the last line from each stanza as the third one in the next stanza. This is so deftly done that I didn't notice it on my first reading. There are other repetitions as well; look for them.

Robert Morgan has also written biography and fiction. He has a new novel, The Road from Gap Creek that has received excellent reviews, most of which mention the quality of the writing as well as the excellence of the subject material. Morgan is another writer who was introduced to me by this regional anthology.