Clyde Kessler, poet and naturalist, lives in Radford, VA with his wife Kendall and their son Alan. Several years ago they added an art studio to their home and named it Towhee Hill. His latest book of poems, Fiddling at Midnight’s Farmhouse (Cedar Creek Publishing), was illustrated by his wife, Kendall Kessler.

Heat Signature

I’m drunk again, and far away
hauling my dust like a grounded bird
in Australia where a mulga can feel
the heat of shadows, miles of heat
laughing at one old American trailing
whiskey. I pretend I can yodel-mock
a wompoo pigeon preening on clouds.
It’s got royal purple belly feathers,
and it always lifts high its drinking song
from a million trees. Or maybe drones
are circling me like vultures. Someone
in Colorado traced me nowhere. Sights
the old man kneeling as if for heaven.
Hey you, this empty bottle is winking
at sand. It’s full of wild cameras, too.
I’ll be home tonight for the next bout
as gruff as a dead acacia tree singing.
I’ll click three photos and eat the sky.

[image: The magnificent Wompoo Fruit-dove of Australia | David Taylor]