National Poetry Month: Michael McClure

SONG
(Michael McClure)

I'M AN EAGLE IN THE WHIRLPOOL.
I'm the fox of reason.
I have had my head bent for truth and treason.
I'm a star in the sunny moon light.
I'm the stumbling fool.
I'm the horse of night
careening on the cliff of flight.
Won't you kiss me?
Won't you hug me?
Please
tell me my name.
I'm the hand of April
with my fingers made of fame.
Come kiss me on my elbow.
Bless
my
mind
good night.
Sweet old flame.
Sweet old flame.
Bless my mind goodnight.
Come kiss me on my elbow.
With my fingers made of fame,
I'm the hand of April.
Tell me my name.
Please,
won't you hug me?
Won't you kiss me?
Careening on the cliff of flight.
I'm the horse of night.
I'm the stumbling fool.
I'm a star in the sunny noon light.
I have had my head bent for truth and treason.
I'm the fox of reason.
I'm an eagle in the whirlpool. 

MICHAEL MCCLURE was one of the poets featured at the Six Gallery in 1955, and Kerouac gave him the name of Pat McLear in Big Sur. He has become an eminent voice for ecology and the environment and Francis Crick, a longtime admirer, wrote "The Poetry of Michael McClure: A Scientist's View" after reading McClure's "Peyote Poem." McClure himself has written: "If all is divine and alive -- and if everything is the Uncarved Block of the Taoists -- then all of it and any part is beauteous (or possibly hideous) and of enormous value. It is beyond proportion. One cannot say that a virus is less special or less divine than a wolf or a butterfly or a rose blossom. One cannot say that a star or cluster of galaxies is more important -- has more proportion -- than a chipmunk or a floorboard. This recognition is always with us." His first book, Passage, was published by Jonathan Williams in 1956; "Song" was originally published in Jaguar Skies (1975).