Sample Poems by Dave Seter

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Airspace of Cherry Blossoms

Undetected by radar in the District of Columbia,
a hummingbird enters the airspace over the National Mall,
its wing bones practically hollow. Tell me,

hummingbird, do you weigh more or less than an angel?
I don't know their names.
I don't know your species.

Most days I don't carry a business card.
If anyone gives you a name let it be
a schoolchild who draws daisies with faces in crayon.

Hummingbird, in the Capitol delegations bloom
and negotiate some small point; debate the placement
of a semi-colon or military tank; but your knowledge

defies gravity and security protocols. Tell me:
do you think we'd know joy if it attacked us?
Will there be sweetness when the last blossom falls?

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Stopping by Bombay Hook

My eyes unsure--from looking up too fast--
a single speck could be a bald eagle.
Reports of sightings drew me to wildlife refuges.
I'd perch in tree stands abandoned by hunters,
desolate, too cold even for their aching bones.
But chance is odd. Stopping by Bombay Hook
on a whim, my old haunt on the Atlantic Flyway,
a bald eagle shot across the sky to join another.
Two specks now tumbled in dance. In myth. In sky.
In dalliance. Where had I heard that word before?
Never mind, I was in love and lost to blinking
at ghosts, but existence is a funny thing, a list
of groceries, lovers, and eagles. They were mine:
I dropped my eyes to jot them--quickly--down.

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Golden Delicious


We found an abandoned orchard, a cave
of branches, unpruned, shaggy the way we liked
our hair to fall against our parents' wishes.

You carried a Swiss army knife in your
back pocket and though there were almost
too many apples cut one in half for us to eat

down to the core then through the cartilage
to the bitter seeds. I thought of you on New Year's Eve.
There was a stage play at Cinnabar Theatre.

Two men and two women played Edith Piaf.
The duality of gender. What a pair
we made: bookish boy and punk rock girl,

her finger hooked through the belt loop of his jeans.
How many times did we try to buy beer
at the crossroads of the doctor and the priest?

Let them keep their opening and closing ceremonies.
Fruit still falls, secret, undeterred--in orchards--
where we found what was golden, was delicious.

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Bullfrogs

Maybe knots in our backs were tree roots growing
as we slept. Whatever the reason, we both woke up,
middle of the night. Despite the cold,
we quit the tent and got drunk first shot
on the Milky Way spilling its light.
Sleepy, staggering, staggered,
we stood open-mouthed far away from the city.
Back home we tried to obliterate night
with fistfuls of light thrown back at the sky.
But camping in the dark, our senses heightened,
what had woken us was the call of bullfrogs.
We followed the sound, towards the pond,
the distance between us and enlightenment
seeming to close. Did we sleep or did we walk?
In that setting, who could care about what was petty
and industrial? That moment devastates me still.
We knew then and there beauty could not be owned,
only borrowed, our mouths gaping like those
of the bullfrogs but making no sounds of our own.

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Prize Hog

Nothing could be simpler than the primal notes
of children as they orbit their fear on carnival rides.
They've learned to say--it's complicated--to any question
an adult might ask, and I would have to agree.
Even though I've outgrown the Tilt-a-whirl
I've just learned the sun rings like a bell our ears can't hear.

When I reach the straw- and dung-strewn stables the earth
in its importance tilts toward children grown into adults.
4H women and men show their hogs in the auction ring.
For some this is the only uniform they've ever worn:
white jeans bleached for show and green bandannas
in some cases accessorized with beads or feathers.

Who better than a farmer to understand--hogs
are kind of like dogs--says the winner leading hers away
to wash and brush one last time. That hog will feed
someone somewhere, meet a primal need. A father
plucks a bandanna from his pocket--it's complicated--
dust gets everywhere--still the sun and the carnival sing.