Tongue of a Crow
Peter Coyote
Peter Coyote’s first collection of poetry takes us on a whirlwind tour of an eclectic and exciting life as an actor and Zen Buddhist priest, meandering from love affairs to marriage to divorce to the Sixties to psychedelic spirituality and beyond. Written over several decades, these poems read as a collage, each piece distinct and contributing to a cohesive lyric narrative.
THIRTIETH YEAR
On the verge of the creek’s-edge field
my young dreaming
hard against the turbulent water,
boys new to long pants
trading girlie pix, Viceroy butts behind
the garage. Rods, reels,
silvery spinners shimmering out,
tempting the fish. The whip
of fiber poles, the flash
of line easy as promises to a
girl I thought was stupid.
She turned her head
to check my lips aimed at hers.
Don and Woody weren’t dead
from bullets in eighth grade, released
to the muddy suck of the stream.