Out in the Great Indifference

Out in the great indifference of night and the dark forest and the pine cones bristled against each other,

In the velvet black which would take your soul quick as cutting grass, and neither hear nor move should you make a sound

Beneath the uncaring stars and the unknowing waters lapping against the lake, which would drown you without malice, and never lift a wave to raise you

There, in the darkest jetties, between branches, little eyes peep out

Creatures who would defend their homes with beaks or claws, with caws and grunted screams to shatter the sky with ferocity, before sitting down, assured of peace, to lick their paws

As a necessary matter, they know the business of survival, and yet

Deep in the night, in hidden dens, excited, they offer their bodies and their hearts

They cuddle and make cozy

Not at all unlike you and me
Who now walk these woods respectfully, making sure we don't get lost, like miners through a cave, we make our way, your hand-in-mine

We dangle in the dark, and you squeeze each other to say, “It’s all okay”

Death is inevitable,
But we walk aware only of the air,
Knowing that no thing can ever be indifferent,
And that such illusions will be changed, in the holy instant yet to be

The Wren

No wonder our ancestors worshipped the sun
Numinous both bodies, here and there, of gas and flesh and bone
Of hope, so that
In light, we recognized our home

It scatters now like grains of sand across a glassy dome,
Shattering in shades of pink so that nothing seems to move;
Is held in thrall, all

But the sky every moment is changing, if we can slow our breath down to look,
Transcending the fear of seeing

Does the wren in her nest turn now and worship?
Do the trees offer obeisance?

I am, somehow, here,
Writing symbols into words
And behind them,
Worlds raise their hands generously to accept what no words could ever capture
No poet enter,
Only standing at the threshold, pen dropping with the open jaw, in awe, we watch our words scatter like sand, and grace makes of them some shade of pink and orange, to greet the day at hand

How can I, breathing, tasting, touching, seeing,
Not see how everything rises like a murmuration of starlings?
Every single thing intelligent, the breathful and breathless,
Speaking that all things are fully forming, here and somewhere near us
And the wren is its perfection—
As with everything the sunlight touches

What the Ravens Know

The ravens know, and the crows—they rise and go, as frenzied mists,
With talons clinched like fists around a fallen berry or a stolen egg
They steal but never beg
They fly but without fear
And then, as if they’ve heard some song through their flapping wings,
A few among them stop to pause upon a fence post, in strange repose
And a communion that none can name or know

All animals—and angels, I suppose—partake in this solitary parlay
This delay of seeming pointlessness;
They do not think it odd to take a closing glare
To survey the land behind and stare, as if they grieve to go

They look back with conciliation, nearly sighing with acceptance—
Of what I do not know—
And then, just as suddenly, they take wing again
As if a bell has rung
As if the train has come
As if some date needs be kept

Maybe it is their sense of loss, like us,
Who see what was only in the looking back, and what true gold there was to grasp,
Among all the shimmers that invited us—

We who did not know the treasures held right there in our hungry hands
Until we had, at last, to up and go
Into the throes of the inevitable

But surely
We, too, can choose to stand head held high and still before the final bend begins
And Nature will not begrudge us, like them,
A final looking back, as sorrow and regret rise to be beat back
By wings spread in heedless hope, unrestrained,
And a heart that knows the way to go
Into a future not bereft of its own bright gold

Some Trees Still Stood

Some trees still stood by the brook
Their trunks were secure, despite the September rain that bruised and battered the streambed and all the woods
But they grieved their leaves, as only a smattering remained
Like loafers at a party, disdaining the long ride home

Even the most beautiful refrain must end,
And the same sad song brings us here again, on the last Sunday in October,
For a final walk, in memoriam to all that's been
In the most beautiful of mausoleums, vaulted in cobalt

The river ran louder this afternoon
Or perhaps we only had new ears, perked up—
Grief does help sound to sing
So here we hear more clearly, and feel more deep the sting:
Our best hopes cannot save that which is consigned to earth
And the divine still becomes dirt

But the colors in the orange instant before us,
This red revolt
Speak of never going quietly
Of fearlessly diving,
Of jumping from a rock into water you trust will hold you
Of holding no pennies back, but thrusting fistfuls forward wildly
Forsaking life-savings for the final ride

Then they fly;
To earth, yes,
But first they fly

And as their last act, they promise something which hovers just beyond the ability of words to purchase
They startle like a hummingbird hanging as miracle above a branch
Hanging with unseen wings, for just a moment,
To prophecy of spring

Outside

They never saw me until I was nearly upon them
Then, startled into a sudden poem,
They scattered like birdshot across the sky
Cawing like madmen with clinched fists, guffawing against the injustice of it, as they went
The ravened morning suddenly flying

And all the while, all I wanted was to share the bright, white
Pink morning with them,
And pass them by without a warning

This Is It

The morning was so enclosed in cold, how could we know that
The farmer’s market was open or that so many brave souls—faithful or loyal or dumb, or perhaps just desperate to sell their wares—would show up there?
When two would have been too many

Yet we chose to keep the faith ourselves and made our way, in our own obeisance (since rituals keep us sane), down the lane and into the inviting smiles, which dutifully hid their own surprise, as we all eyed each other knowingly:
Isn't it plain that we are the wild ones, and that we defy all odds?

It was all we could do to find our steps along the wet earth, though the trees that stood at sentry to usher us through the icy depths
Their own breath, should they find it, would have frozen on the air, no doubt, like mist, and the way their lithe
limbs slendered out unto their ends, encased in frozen water, was like Belle's rose—
All the world perfectly frozen, as a warning to all live things:
To rush today for no thing

Except
I did not see that it was beauty, so fixated on each footfall above the squelching mud, until
I sensed you'd stopped and turning, saw you, as if in worship before an icon or the very Lord of hosts,
That bright invitation of smile on your face, your hand splayed satisfied on your hips, as you said,
"Yeah...this is it"

Turning, I, too, saw the beauty that was already everywhere
As we stopped, while snow fell down
Already there
Already everywhere, in the flood
In the bright gold thread holding the morning together
Warm like fresh-baked bread
The body and the blood

The Moon is a Quiet Messenger

I guess all men and women have retreated, at times, from quiet climes,
And from the bright light of the moon,
To a bar, a brothel, a saloon

A pretty wink, a flash of flesh, a quick drink
Seem so close to what we're looking for
(In the short term of things, at least)

Meanwhile, poets upstairs write of a ghastly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas
And the moon looks down, while in a black-blue vault she sails along

Upstairs or down, we can't tell if she sits in tenderness
Or looks down ruefully,
But tonight
Fireflies beneath, dancing in the trees
Make all things seem to move more slowly
Closer to what we really want—
To earth and to reality

I’m old enough now to know I’m no saint
But I do want to be good, like the moon
Draped graciously across the trees and the night and the whole earth
And making no more the mistake of taking God’s seeming silence for absence
Or the quiet as hard-heartedness
Or goodness as a river we ford, instead of a sea we fall back into

We were too busy crossing from world to world to stop
And hear the swell of crickets
But thank God that you took my hand and led me, again, beneath the moon
While the night clung to good, cold dirt
While the woods rested and the nightbirds worshiped
In the quiet sanctuary of endless goodness,
Where no words at all are needed  

Metaphors and Similes, in Autumn

Autumn has yet to fail me
And has birthed again in me some revelry, too deep to name, that
Encircles me like leaves
As the world goes quiet, along the ridge line
To teach us about leaving

The ravens above the tree-line come and go
As if they know the forward moving way of things
So far from green,
As the geese sing

I don't know why this fall is more for me like spring than any season
I’d think growth would make me touch the deep down things—
The hidden parts of being, but
There is something about the falling apart that feels like freedom
And leaves scattered in an endless storm of unbeing, with little grief
Speak the metaphor beneath all things:
There's something about not having to hold things together, at the end of things,
That sets us free

Perhaps we want, beneath all the posturing, to be undone
And to come home stripped down but unbroken
Rising like the moon through barren branches,
Which becomes the simile for beauty, no matter the season

Now we wait for the new moon, unafraid of any ending
Afraid only of holding on too long
And wary of missing the release sent to welcome us
And the death sent
To set us free

October Smoke

So comes October smoke, with hope,
And my dog lays his head in my lap
At last,
The year and the dog bending at the end of day
As we make our way like a golden leaf, blown by the breeze, de-treed
And fallen in the orange stream,
As if all things are simply on their way, past decay
To the sea
To the bright and autumn sea, which holds the sunlight in just the same way
As it held the August heat, and the longer days

All things, it seems, find their way, through pain
To the heart of everything
Resting our heads as in God's own lap
At peace, at last

Bare Limbs Against a Cold Moon

One pure thing my grief gave me
The ability to see
The sight of limbs on the breeze, especially
Specifically, that beauty: 
The bare limbs of winter trees

And against them, far beyond
The opal light of moon
Too proud to swoon, too high to kneel
Standing, simply, stock-still
As if any movement could startle the mouse 
Who scampers across the field,
Aware as he is of the owl's impending shadow 
Perhaps, of his doom
Or, in his way, perhaps sensing the thrill
Of being alive on a fully embodied night 

The whole earth is wound up like a cat prepared to leap
As if there some secret to find and keep
And I, there in the field, my hands reaching blindly before me
Through my grief, some secret to see
Find it, and hold it near 
As the dearest thing to me 
The bare limbs of the winter trees

El Dorado Nature Center

The forest, seemingly dealt a death wound by the encroaching swaths of concrete in this greedy city, its woods nearly asphyxiated by asphalt,
Is a remarkable magician, slipping free, 
A grand Houdini 
A mage and a sage with some great prank to play,
A cardsharp who has pulled the winning ace

As we walk through its woods, the world falls away
And though we can still hear, near us, the faint drumming of the freeway
Always on this walk
Another noise overtakes us, soundlessly

If you’re quiet, you can hear something say
That the most minute tree breathes with the promise of ferocity
The Nature Center, after all, smells the same as the Black Forest, dark and unyielding, Just waiting to break free

And so
Ominous promises rise on every side:
This forest is a stronghold, bristling in the knowledge that someday 
It will be at liberty 
And will hold hands once again with all its brothers, across the land

It but slumbers here, while future visions appear
As at the coming of the Christ,
Cities and gardens will end their strife 
And wolves lie down with lambs 
As we walk, free of worry,
And hand-in-hand 

In the Beginning was the Word

Sometimes, when the moment strikes
Most often, late at night
When the sky is storm-swept and lit up from the city, so many miles away, 
And the clouds are shining purple and gray and red 
Or when the wind is roiling like the sea, lifting branches on the breeze
The sky cobalt and black and deep 
I will lay down in the driveway, on my back 
And say the words of some famous quote or poem or song
That still goes on, through the long and winding years 
Some verse I've heard along my way and placed in my pocket for such a moment

Then I will wonder if whoever penned it, often long deceased in the hospitable dirt, the pillars of the earth
Somehow, somewhere hears me say it, beyond the grave 
And if they marvel still, after all these years
That they, too, are a part of the great, green ocean
And its endless dance of waves

The Last Cold Night of Spring

This may be the last cold night of spring, 
Wreathed as the world is now, in green, before the summer heat 
And seasons and years will pass before October 
Crowns again our feet with golden leaves

This street is the same in any season, always, and 
I wonder if the cars can see me sitting on the steps, 
The light of my pipe a beacon on the night
Coming alive as with longing eyes
As I breathe, beneath quiet skies

They pass the same as they ever have, the teenagers and adults, 
They drive at different speeds, though
And I'm old enough now to have played both roles
I’m looking more down and back than I ever have 

The lives do not change, just the roles they play,
Just the ages and the players, re-arranged upon the stage
The scene always the same,
In every day and age

Nor has the singular beauty of the night faded from this place:
The rising light of the headlamps as they crest the hill
Fills the forest as with fire, for just a moment, until
Cresting, the light holds still at the top, and then it drops
As they come down, at first without a sound, and then 
The leaves and the branches shake, as if awakened by a wave
As the cars pass on
To lives which must play out the familiar pattern
Day by day 

I sit here in the smoke of dirt and earth, waiting
Letting my soul be in no hurry, so that it, too, awakens

And I see, already, the autumn before me
Here in this last cold snap before the summer
As school lets out
As young children shout with joy
As the world crests over us, whatever our moment’s wisdom
Whatever knowing our age can hold

While this street stays the same
And the world crests like light 
Like all the sun's light, rising and falling on the night  

Prayer Like Birdwatching

We waited behind the bush, with no bated breath nor restlessness but the peace of wild things 
The lake 
The rocks 
The trees
The breeze

When suddenly, a kingfisher burst into view  
Red bright chest, blue wings 
A choir singing

Only slowly, after he had flown
Did the world resolve to flesh and bone and shapes
With shades again surrounding me,
My body once again around me, as sound resumed in the chambers of my ears
No fear except awe
No tears except those that are close to longing 

The world, somehow, was unaware and still, 
Nonchalant, as if no great thing had happened
And the water rippled as before
The world restored, as if it had not gone away, but stayed
The mud was not turned to gold nor stone to set our feet upon

I shook my head at the strangeness 
And I breathed in the freshened air, as if aware
Of the sweetness of which to sing, of life, 
Of being here and now

Then I said “Amen” and was done with prayer 
As if one could be done with the rising sun or moon
The call of geese coming home
The need for trees and spring

I opened my door to face the world, 
Knowing that things are not as they seem
And great things await possibility
Springing suddenly into view, amid the most mundane, like newborn mountains 
If we don’t grow faint with too much seeing
If we don’t forget that everything is miracle 
That everything invites believing 

The Birdsong Breaks the Morning

How incongruent the birdsong breaking the morning, as if unaware
A prophet or an imbecile?

My belly—instead—woke in flames of fire, trembling like a wind-blown spire
With fear, a spreading dread, at some hidden thought, 
My body seeming once again to know before me—
Making sense of things unseen—
Believing something wrong  

But that song: 
It dreads no thing
The fringes of its reality marked with no dark edges
Just spring
As I lie in the dark
As I wonder if the lark
Sees things as they are
Or only as they could be

Or as they are, but still
Choosing song and spring 
Sings, 

Singing in the bright, pink morning 

The Ordination of All Things

After my ordination, with ritual and ceremony, enough pomp to feel we accomplished something
And after the party, 
I walked down to the corner, for to parlay my own self
For to introvert and breathe, sigh and smile, my mouth finding grace in the surprise taste of a last bit of pound cake, in dried sugar on my face

Then light fell in the holy hour, when things bow before the shower of coming night 
Everything lifted its head, then set it down again, like a dog welcoming its master, with wagging tail
The trees, the flowers, the blades of grass in the park just across from me
But also the wood and concrete and the city street, all flush with longing
As orange and pink cascaded across the sky
Like warm incense, a languid mist
The incandescence of holiness

So light fell in the daily reminder that all will be well 
The celebration of the ordination of all things
And a reminder that God, too, vulnerably dreams
And feels the sting of human being
And the loss that evening brings  

Cursing in the Temple

They did not see me as they passed through the trees, down hill and trail

I sat beneath a spreading tree, on a fallen pine rail, above the dale, a hundred feet up, eating fruit  
And they were quiet, so I said nothing and even stilled the crunching of my apple 
So they could pass by like a deer, heedless of any prying eyes, minding the aura of the untouched all around us

But I felt a small pang of guilt, too, thinking that, should they see me surveying them, they would think my
hiding was spying 
And perhaps I was lying by laying by, breaking some unwritten hiker's code, but I simply could not bear to break the quiet
Or the peace that comes among wild things

Suddenly, one of them—the woman—kicked a rock which bounced off a log and back at her
And she yelled a curse word, laughing

It hung so strangely on the morning air, that profanity, glorious in its gory piercing of serenity 
As it echoed down the trail and against the rock wall a hundred yards across from us

Like farting in a temple, it was
Profane ink spilled on white sheets
But
The morning just lapped it up, 
As a mother wipes up spilled milk 
So effortless it absorbed it all, overpowering in its intensity, then gently 
Restoring the sound of footfalls and, after a few moments, the crunching of my apple among the song of leaves and birds singing soft through stalks of trees

So Eden is restored not with banging cymbals but the simple mirth of quiet
Like loudness never was on this bright earth

All the while, morning billowed like a great blue ocean all about us
In the temple of the endless world 
As the morning whispered that nothing can defile it
And the mountain nodded with a knowing smile 

The Morning Does Not Despise

The cold morning does not despise the burning ember
As hikers linger, still long asleep, within its shade
Nor does it look askance as the aspens tremble
Or roll its eyes at the laboring magpie
"Get up, get up," it softly cries, 
As the black crow rises
And the fog surmises its demise, with perfect peace

But the real trick is that 
The forest does not despise the spring fire which burns it to its base,
Every branch scored and scorned and stripped of mirth 
The birch and fir will fly, but first must go to earth
With that faith that fire, surely, will give new birth
And the morning, once again, gather all her children in

On a Normal Tuesday

On a normal Tuesday morning, around ten,
Clouds of fog, dirt-tinged, drift in,
Down, along, and across the ridge
Filling the farm bottom with trails of streaming white, 
The gleaming of a sacred light
To bridge the dirt and sky 

In town, a bell rings
And the great storm of earth and sky keeps rolling, threshing like a mill, through its seasons, something too subtle to espy 
Throwing words into the sky, unknowing
Our blind prophet, this earth, ever speaking 
That tide and stars most reliably mark time
And so, too, the migration of the geese
The felling of a scythe 
The occasional dipping down of sky, in mist and fog 

We could be working instead of heaving away from shore, across the bridge in your battered truck
To find some place to stand and fish and hope for luck 
And my God, the world is always just like this, waiting for someone to step back and take it in 
As trucks park and ripe fruit is unloaded in the market
Red and yellow and green
The world so full of such bright things

Meanwhile,
We land like Martians on happy soil, unloading our tackle boxes,
As we watch the fog pour through the trees
Knowing we need, sometimes, to be covered

Just so, on this Tuesday
Surrounded by so much miracle that it hurts our soul and makes us turn away and, like monks, keep our silence
Our hearts blinded with the pain of too much seeing 
As bluebirds sing
And the morning owl takes wing

White Pink Morning

I believe, as I read the poet this morning, that the bluebird and the white pink morning of which she sings (both the poet and the bluebird) were specific things
Or moments, at least

But removed as I am from her pen and memory, the specific things I cannot see 
Which ends up far better for me: 
Sitting on my couch, for just a moment I am lifted through my mind to every place ever graced by a pink
morning
To Albuquerque, perhaps, or Maine 

I cannot see all the names, shrouded as they are in secrets
As if around us some reality is waiting to come crashing down on top of us
Beautifully, like the heaving of a waterfall, which will not reveal all 
Still, we feel its water certainly inside us

But maybe, too, she had no place in view when she wrote those words
Maybe there was no white pink morning and no bluebird and just an inner eye seeing and beating with the hidden heart of the world

I do not know
But I feel we are heading downstream together, still
To a bright pink morning 
As long as we don’t get bogged down with too many things 
Or even with our own healing
When the bright blue world and its pink mornings are an endless springtime balm 
So willing to hold and sooth and calm us all
As we rise like the sun, not quite sure where we are
As the long day of knowing finally dawns

Today’s Metaphor is Rain

Maybe that cloud is today’s metaphor for God
Always rising as it is, over the eastern ridge, but somehow never drawing near,
And fanned at its penumbra with burnt smoke 
Fire and clouds and God, all hot with the taste of forest and always changing shape

I’m sure I see the face of some Grace in the shapeless longing to cool the scorched earth with sweet spring rain, though 
As we lay in our tent, struck by the rumble and ruckus of the thunder
In a dark night with no moon to illuminate the steps of any living thing
We waited beneath the tarp for the flicking fingers to begin
And we just went on waiting, until sleep carried us away 

The raindrops never graced us with their presence
And we woke to a dry patch of grass, though, 
Across the meadow, the stream was thicker and more alive with spring
And we tasted second-hand the gift, as grateful bands of animals came and drank
Which became its own picture of mercy, and grand in its way
Though we had wanted water to wet our own hands 
To steady and stay us for the day 

Leaving us the strange shape of how things stand, as we make our way through the thicket of forest
Rain, like mercy, comes in such strange fits and starts
Amid the thirst of so much hungry land
And the hot patches of thirsty ground
Where beauty’s all around 
But the fullness is falling just further down, along the range
As a dark cloud rises, just one ridgeline away 

An Apple Should Be Heard (Pear Cycle II)

I tried to eat quietly, but the lady next to me turned her eyes and smiled
And I grimaced apologetically, slowly removing the offending apple from my mouth, mouse-like,
A child whose secret has been spied out
She said, “That’s alright…a pear should be silent but an apple should be heard,”
Then she turned back to her magazine as if she’s bandaged a knee and healed the world 
And I nodded, wondering at her marvelous words
A pear should be silent; an apple should be heard 

Then
Visions of a sun-drenched farm filled my head, and children chasing dogs and geese
down to a pond, by an orchard, where perfect pears drop down, so full of life they want to burst, weighing branches with redolent mirth, until a child smiles and plucks one, and when he bites into it, the whole world goes quiet

The dog perks its ears and shuts its mouth before its tongue comes lolling out, and a hawk wheels about the blue sky and away from the earth with shrieks of worship, 
While,
Thousands of miles away, the arms of Venus de Milo are restored to their proper home 
And the cantors at St. Peter’s in Rome, find their voices strangely and suddenly lush, while congregants hush 
And the Great Barrier Reef flourishes in deep hues, the ocean floor rejoicing

I am afraid, however, that the next pear I find will be one of those rude varieties, hard and cold like stars 
It will turn its back on me and belch when I try to take a bite of it, longitude ripping in two as the world spins catawampus down the stairwell of stars, while everyone turns and stares, throwing soggy apples at my head, some of which thump soundlessly on the hard ground
Don’t you know, you villain, they all yell: “a pear should be silent but an apple should be heard!”

I nod my heard, for they’re dead to right 
As we all long for a world where things find their proper place and spring is an immortal sprite
Sitting in the stands while Babe Ruth steps to the plate
Ready to take a loud crack at the bat
As a ball flies in its most efficient arc, before the longest day of summer, warm and cool and perfect

To Simply Climb

They hired Swiss guides to teach Canadians how to climb
Or just to lead them to some patch where they could play, 
To make some wild wooded part of mountain enough of a playground, like saddling a tiger, teetering in the seasons between avalanches 

Before there were selfies or livestreams to show it 
The thing itself was what you lived for
A snowflake that would melt, but you held it just the same
The precious reality of something you cannot save 
Becomes the very thing that points the way 
In a time when you just breathed in and hoped to remember the warm feel of sunlight 
The memory a sunbeam in the brain, kept through the long decades 

Can you imagine opening a land to sport, as they called your name and paid you to teach survival on a mountain pass? 
And you thrilled with the thought of buxom blondes steamed over to this new land, 
To be one of those first few to stand on the summit of Rundle or some other peak which promised escape, above it all?

The sorrows of 1910 were still the size of peaks, despite it all
There was loss and death
But, 
It must have been like a poet finding the right word, a gambler floating aces on the river
A sort of escape, as you suited up, slipping your rope up and over your shoulder,
Forsaking the precision of your Swiss watch
Watching shadows instead, playing across the mountain faces

Into the veritable frontier, as you looked up to the slopes ahead, and, forgetting the ones behind
Enjoyed the great pleasure of singular focus and a clear goal
To stay alive
To simply climb

To Be Here Now, in the Great Belly of the Beast

I am listening to a baseball game, one of the more refined pleasures of this lingering American century
And sure, the radio is also a handheld genie with more computing power than the ship that put men on the moon
But
Sitting in Central Park while spring tries to spring, before the sun soaks up the
wet grass and wears shades and smiles (like the suns of 1,001 children’s books),
it is warm enough to enjoy the smell of hot dogs and someone’s fine tobacco
(It may be cheap, but what do I know? And who cares?)

And I become aware of timelessness here
On these leaves upon which so many derrières have sat
The day that Armstrong waddled down the ladder, perhaps, 
Onto that great white orb, now circling with endless speed this green sphere, 
And perhaps ten thousand other days, where souls have sat enjoying the little grattitudes of life, 
Of eating, of smoking, of pushing pain away 

My dad taught me how to sit and do nothing, which is the greatest excellence of a man, and one at which I still struggle lop-sidedly, an artist still at crayons,
But after the final out, while my wife sleeps on a sprawling rock untouched by centuries of metal teeth or the sharp whirr of the bulldozer,
I practice the art of being here
Now
And become aware of my breath
And let my mind wander down its spiral staircase for a waking nap
So that everything can become just sense, 
Of green and sun, of earthy smells
Which makes my soul shudder, at how large this park is, and how small, like squirrels, we are in this great belly of city
And how still, that seems good and right: a sensation of dangling
And how it’s better to have some sense of falling
Than a false sense of being held
Or worse, the addiction of avoidance that is our endless rushing around, 
Trying to be everywhere 

The Cow Turned Its Head (So Wait on Life)

Around the bend, while we chased sunlight
I will remember always the last pasture  
Where three cows sat unaware of anything much spectacular in this dark world
Certainly not, by God, the burning down of earth and sky
Like hope collapsing to endless density, cold and quiet

I waved my camera, quick as I could, fixing its fixtures to take in the world, frame and shutters ready
But it would not work, despite the perfection of orange above me, because  
The damn cow closest us was content at eating grass
And there’s nothing sweet about a bovine ass  
(It’s a cheap rhyme, but there, I’ve said it, I couldn’t let it pass) 
In the center of the frame  
And the other two so far turned, were helpless to help me, as the sky turned dark and the seconds burned  

But, 
at the last moment, that cow most close to us—who knows why, God alone— 
Turned its head, sighing or eyeing me, 
I believe he flipped his tail, too, as if to say, “Yeah, I see you" 
And that image of his face made everything else take its place, stand ready, and say “Cheese!”—the sky, the trees, the holy grace  
As not three cow hides but rather three beautiful beasts  
Filled the center of the frame, and one, a perfect quiz upon his face, was an angel to all the rest, as I clicked away 

He, my new friend, quick as cows can move,  
Settled back down to herb and plate, all done
But the sky was through, anyway, as things need to find their boring, brooding pace again

I knew, though, for that moment, that his turning seemed to say, “Be present, wait on life, things will look your way" 
And I could not have loved him more
So grateful for the photo, which sits framed now, on my desk,
And much more for the metaphor  

Escape from LA

I made a home where the sun always shines
With freeways and palm trees and traffic signs
A home where you rest your wearied feet
Though you’ve walked not a mile, and stepped not a beat
But pedaled through madness, through crowds, and through heat
In gray lanes, in metros, and urban retreats
And neon, and smiles, and meet-cutes-and-greets

Through refrains of headaches, the seasons are concrete
And tulips and roses are burned out by heat
So asphalt’s the flavor that floats on the breeze
And car horns the sonnets that play through the trees
The song of the autumn is trucks in their straining
In merging lane-changings with no thank you waving
As they swagger and stomp with their impolite feet
And bleat down the freeway like overstuffed sheep

But now I’m bound for somewhere far
I feel the burning, I’ll answer the call
Of land where sea is rolling in green
Where summer is gentle and winter is mean
And we’ll forget interchanges and pages and frets
From smog alerts and the hundreds of texts
Beeping like peace-seeking missiles directed
At a man’s sense of quiet and silence and feeling
Without which a man can’t make rest with his being

We’re bound and we’re leaving, we’re going afar
We’ll search through the bogs, barbaric and wild,
That thaw when the springtime’s passion’s enthralled
We’ll find them, we’ll walk them, we’ll sit on their logs
We'll battle the brooding of mist and of fog
As the geese and the mallard honk on the breeze
As windstorm and headwinds sing through the trees
And the bog echoes back with the croak of its frogs  

We’ll ride to the north woods,
We’ll hunt for the birch
We’ll hike through the forest
We’ll wipe off the dirt
Where magpies and skylarks and puffins are perched
Where the November storms promise battle has come
And we’ll grip and we’ll feel the roll in the stern
When the aft tips downward and sails are a-fly
And the spray of the sea puts salt in your eye

Yes, we’ll sail to the lands where the flags are a-buckled
And windstorms and raindrops send curtains a-ruffle
And the wind in your hair sends your backbone a-tingle
With the promise behind it of storm and of winter
And we’ll laugh and we’ll relish the flight and the fear
And will earn every draught of the sun and the clear

We’ll know that out here a man will be drowned
And we’ll revel that mystery still can be found
Far from the mouse ears and freeways and sounds
And the asphalt that blankets and covers the ground

We’ll start a new baseline, with shadows and fears
We’ll learn to tremble at the roar of the tears
Of the vast-speckled autumn, melting the year
Till winter, so naked and barren and sparse,
Reminds us that life is a poem not a farce
Of sun and of surgery, highways and cars
But a battle for living that must leave its scars

We’ll respect the black ebony of December’s floorings
When winter at last has slipped from her moorings
And then as the snow casts its pall on the land
We’ll laugh and we’ll revel and grab at its hand
And go skipping down hillsides and dales and down glens
We’ll run through the meadow and skate oe’r the fens

And when winter has locked the land up in its grasp
And no man can stir, not a moose nor a mouse
We’ll curl by the fire and look through the glass
Where snowflakes are falling and coming down fast
We’ll look and we’ll know that preparing is past
That now is the time to batten the hatch
And that fire is friend and our strength and our life
We’ll laugh and we’ll rest in the joy and the strife

And all will be quiet and silent and holy
We’ll wake with the morn and go to sleep slowly
To hear every noise of the wood off its feet
Slumbering through cold, the snow and the sleet

And when springtime so dappled revives all the trees
And the birdsong returns on the meadows and lees
When summer comes golden, with wheat in its hands
No one will find us nor know where we stand
We’ve gone out a-roaming and roving the land

Yellow

I am only writing this to remember that I was not looking for a sign
And only realized hours later, as I turned the lever and felt the rush of untested water which caught my breath, the surprise even worse than the cold blast on opening a shower door (such are the pains of all sudden absences)
That the yellow-breasted bird sat like a needle in the haystack of that brown, mottled wood
A coy reminder of something too quiet for words
A prophet whispering wordlessly, “yes, and keep moving forward”

Socks

My clean socks smell of fields brought into order
Dirt, tamed by cotton
And cotton claimed by the long hands of workers who sewed the stitches
As faithful as a conductor's watch
As faithful as the baton of Brahms

Oh, I know they were made by machines
But the touches of those long needles moving tirelessly, like the axis of earth,
Always follow the hands of man, which first break the ice that we pass through
All things made and crafted, for our quickly-passing-through

So that young feet growing old, like mine,
Can find purchase, warm and dry, in one eternal moment
In all the wonder, treading the scent of mud and rock and so much green,
And the longing just above the next rise
And the next one, not so very far behind

Blasphemy to Minnesotans

There is no winter here, but if I am diligent
I can cobble together some semblance of it

It does get cold in the night
And if I wake up early, the mist will just reminisce of frost
Or, when we’re lucky, real crystals crunch on the blades

If I go out early with one layer, I need to pull my jacket tight
To keep the air out
And can more easily remember places where survival was at stake
Beside the lake
The night you grazed by me and I wondered
If the weight of your shoulder against my arm was intentional
In the land where all speaking was sent sideways
And we never looked too long in anyone’s eyes

I have realized
This is the sort of thing that winter holds for me
Memories that will not let go
The crisp dawn, the smell of smoke
The feeling that we are free-wheeling over water
While bare limbs bounce on winter wind
Beneath a bright full moon

Pastoral I: Los Angeles

Sometimes through the concrete, you get a glimpse of how grand the land was
Before condo and apartment swept down over it, covering it
You get a sense of Indians who stood on the shore and looked up at the mountains and fell down, because the Great Spirit knew nothing of boardwalks or billboards or roadside dinosaurs

Sometimes, early in the morning, late at night, you can hear the earth breathing, sleeping, the mountains creaking, unaware of all the late-night blankets now draped over it

It’s all glitter, ready to be shaken off, like a dog shakes off bath-water before it takes a nap

The earth will rise and, like the dog, tremble, unaware of itself, lost in some hypnagogic nod, before stretching its paws and curling up again in a tight, unknowing ball

Pastoral II: England

The thing about England is how beautifully worn down the land is
It’s like some monarch whose crown, long since taken, stubbornly stands
His stature taken by so many days, sure,
But still, he’s more dignified in old age than any upstart, yet to be worn by life’s long reign

There's nothing rugged about it now except the moors, where the cold rain pelts down and pours
But even that water runs down into gentler slopes--
There are no Alpine inclines--
Just gentle hills that gather everything until it’s still
And drop the water into quiet pools
Upon which leaves and acorns drop

And by them, in the woodlands
Moles and toads forage and hide
And water rats glide
Upon unassuming waters

And a soul can find the unpretentious shade
Untouched by mountain glory
A place to rest and consider the story
Of all one’s simple days
Knowing there is nothing half so good
As messing about in quiet woods

Pastoral III: Alabma

The old growth is all but gone
Cut down to make
Backyard altars for the autumn
Decks on which pork is sacrificed
And pigskins worshipped

But good God, the green

Flying in from the desert, it leaps up to smother you
Like heat
You can sit still in it and hear
The ever-warbling whippoorwill
The bullfrog, the cricket
The cacophony
That makes you believe
Life does not stop at death
Some symphony
Some force,
Some work greater than mystery,
Overcomes the earth, and our dead bones

I can see it:
The earth re-claiming, without a noise
The toothpicks built upon it
Like Gulliver snapping silly cords,
The earth will pull the ramparts down
Without malice or a sound
While spirits soar and take up bodies
And walk the earth once more,
With no need for shelter

So each new pine, planted to replace the old
Is vanguard
Come to proclaim
That the dead will rise again
Even if the wait is far and tarries
Long after each of us is gone

 

The Week Before He Moves Away

She ripped her new stockings
Running across the cotton fields
Laughing in big gulps, like swigging soda

The twittering,
Like drunken larks tumbling flightless
Across the ground
Almost woke the dogs and cats

But…they didn’t
And “almost, but no”
That’s youth’s good luck
Beneath a harvest moon
In summer’s final swoon