Posted in Uncategorized, tagged emily dickinson, heron, nightfall, oneness, solitude, sunset on October 30, 2011| 1 Comment »
How the old mountains drip with sunset
—Emily Dickinson
Dear Emily,
It was just as you said, tonight,
the San Juans rose and blue,
and in the shallow reservoir,
the herons dripping, too—
I did not mean to startle them
as grayly there they stood,
but on hushed feet I stepped myself
into solitude.
Wing after wing they rowed themselves
into the muted dome
till all went dim—oh dark abyss!—
and we were held as one.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged duality, heron, Meredith Nemerov, miracle, painting, tanka sequence, Walt Whitman on October 29, 2011| 1 Comment »
To me, every hour of the light and dark is a miracle.
—Walt Whitman
Balanced against morning frost
I do not see
the great blue heron
wading in the river
so I put it there
*
Meredith mentions
a student who insists
on painting
into the foreground
a rock
*
“All she needs is a darker color,”
Meredith says, “and a value
like a triangle
and the canvas
would be full of light”
*
You do not have
to be talented—even
my three year old girl
knows how to paint
something that makes her smile
*
It is not a painting,
this life, still
there was a heron here not
long ago, standing in frost
it was so beautiful
*
Here and not here,
light and dark,
so many years spent
debating the two—this morning
I see it, the river chimed in frost
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aloneness, crow, sonnet, the call on October 28, 2011| 1 Comment »
We follow the call. It leads us deeper and deeper.
—Joi Sharp
Inside, I think I hear the call of crow,
and walk outside to find where it is singing.
Crow is nowhere to be seen, no winging
cross the blue. Not in the trees. And no
more song. I listen. Listen. Listen. Oh!
I hear it there, through pinions, a small hinging
in the air, and try to follow, swinging
my legs over cactus patches, deer scat, snow,
an old barbed wire fence strung low, what’s that?
Another bird. What’s that? A hidden creek.
Where is the crow? I stop, perch on a stone.
Caw. I startle, looking for the black
outline of bird. It’s here, I think, and meet
my shadow, flapping in the sun, alone.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged gratitude, starlight, tanka on October 27, 2011| 1 Comment »
No way to miss it
tonight walking out
the door into the insistent
dazzle of stars,
what a miracle, this life.
Posted in Uncategorized on October 26, 2011| 1 Comment »
She is being dissolved,
the one who thinks
this life is hers, the one
who thinks she’s driving
the car on the icy road
or lifting her foot
to take the next step.
She doesn’t like it one lick,
this sense that she
is not in charge, this
suggestion that something
else is living her life.
Never mind that her plans
haven’t worked before.
This is her life and she’s
staying.
Her mother doesn’t like it,
either, this notion that her
daughter’s self is not unique,
not perfectly perfect, not hers.
Her mother rushes to her
defense and champions
the one whom she named.
But she is being dissolved
as one by one the things
she thought she knew
as sure as iron are bent
like grass. And she is being
dissolved as whatever
can be lost is lost.
She’s afraid to even write
those words in case
she’s inviting more loss.
When will this be over?
She is ready to rebuild the walls.
And she is being dissolved
even as she grasps
with her hands, her gut,
even as she pulls out her hammer,
even as the next line is written,
even as her lips are puckered
to form an imperfect circle,
ready to assert the word that she
knows best, no, no, no.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grief, nothing, tanka on October 25, 2011| 1 Comment »
Nothing, nothing, nothing
will take away
the loss.Still,
how I hate coming to you
with nothing.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged 84, brian swimme, choices, transmutation on October 25, 2011| 2 Comments »
at the splitting of paths
there is no sign
transform
or die
tough choice
till we realize
we must do both
*This is the first in a series of 84-character poems about transmutation, Brian Swimme’s seventh power of the universe. In EnlightenNext, he writes, “This is the way in which the universe sometimes insists that something new come forth. … When Earth finally emerged and brought forth bacteria, why didn’t the universe just call it a day? Isn’t it enough that tiny pieces of Earth jump with life? Apparently not. Our universe is a self-transcending community of beings, and transcendence is often a necessity.”
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged friendship, growing up, tanka, the muck on October 23, 2011| 1 Comment »
Dust it was, today
the road where once
we smudged each other with mud.
How little then we knew
of how messy things can be.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged 84, compost, failure, synergy on October 22, 2011| 1 Comment »
a heap of twigs
leaves
& grass
should compost
two years later
I still have
a heap of twigs
leaves
& grass
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged being present, tanka, the moment on October 21, 2011| 2 Comments »
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged tanka on October 20, 2011| 1 Comment »
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, father-in-law, grief, villanelle on October 20, 2011| 3 Comments »
for my father-in-law
I do not know how to remember him—
his bluster, thunder, warmth, his glassy sea.
He was like weather, changing all the time.
Like two words that almost, but do not rhyme,
that’s how we loved. We’d try, but seldom met.
I do not know how to remember him.
I’d hide a bit each time that he’d come in,
unsure if he would snarl or want to please.
He was like weather, changing all the time.
Drought. Flood. The rain with softest hands
that turns to hail. A mist that’s miles deep.
I do not know how to remember him.
White out. And the blue sky after. Wind
that breaks the limbs. And docile morning breeze.
He was like weather, changing all the time.
The memories rearrange like leaves in autumn.
What is this urge to want to rake them neat?
I do not know how to remember him.
He was like weather, changing all the time.
Posted in Uncategorized on October 18, 2011| 3 Comments »
Here at the half of autumn
when the leaves fall and don’t
fall, every path feels like a path.
There is no ignoring that every
moment matters. A wind comes.
Another half of the golden grove is gone.
Last night I met a man who lost his mother.
He was on a beach in Wales when she died
in Oregon. The waves did not speak the news:
She’s gone. She’s gone. He wishes he
could have just one more conversation with her
to tell her that he loves her. And I want
to tell him she hears what he feels. But
neither of us would believe it.
Tonight I sat on a plane beside a man,
so close we had to work to not touch,
and never once did we look at each other.
I sat beside him, dumb, pretending to sleep.
This is how it feels inside autumn,
as if the structure of things is starting to show—
whatever is glittersome,
lush, green or gold, is falling
away to reveal whatever is open,
emptying, swaying.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged 84, everything, nothing, synergy on October 18, 2011| 2 Comments »
it’s probably yours
the nothing
found today
on my hike
thank you
between
the leaves
the spaces
so
open
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged 84, irony, synergy on October 16, 2011| 1 Comment »
you break
and I break
and in the breaking
a writhing, grisly
foul mess—
and what are
these petals
I see
?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dimeter, skin on October 15, 2011| 2 Comments »
It holds things in—
the bile, the bones,
the heart that floats,
the glands, the spleen.
It cages the pulse
and encases the dance
of corpuscles
and ligaments.
It holds what’s left
of this woman who’s wept,
and it does not scar
after runnels of tears.
It shows the years
that passed but does
not tell their secrets.
It holds the brain,
the gut, the tongue,
even the heaving
of race-run lungs,
and tries to be
a container for grief,
but it leaks, the skin,
and grief, it spills,
it rushes, stampedes,
unravels and floods,
unreels and keels
and erupts. It’s messy,
grief, and its twin sister
bliss, both of them
practiced escape artists.
It’s just doing
the task it knows
best, the skin,
dutifully trying
to hold it all in.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged autumn, tanka on October 15, 2011| 2 Comments »
Posted in Uncategorized on October 13, 2011| 2 Comments »
I tell my son that no one knows.
But mom, what happens when we die?
Do we come back? Where do we go?
I tell my son that no one knows.
But when I die, I say, I’ll show
up everywhere you are. But why?
I tell my son that no one knows.
what happens when we die.
*this poem is an old French form, the triolet … um, I think I’ll come back to edit this one.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ego, letting go, mind, pantoum on October 12, 2011| 1 Comment »
Sometimes it’s hard to let things go.
They keep returning to the mind
like echoes in a narrow canyon—
hello, hello, hello, hello.
They keep returning to the mind,
these images, these pushy thoughts,
hello, hello, hello, hello,
like stones dropped into glassy ponds.
These images, these pushy thoughts—
like neighbors who keep knocking, knocking,
like stones dropped into glassy ponds.
And trying to stop them makes it worse.
Like neighbors who keep knocking, knocking,
these same darn thoughts, these same darn thoughts.
And trying to stop them makes it worse.
I give up, I give up, I give up, I give up.
These same darn thoughts, these same darn thoughts,
I’m, encircled by these same darn thoughts.
I give up. I give up. I give up. I give up.
Oh make them stop, please make them stop.
I’m encircled by these same darn thoughts
like echoes in a narrow canyon.
Oh make them stop, please make them stop.
Sometimes it’s hard to let things go.
*The pantoum is a poetic form from Malaysia that plays on repetition. Two lines, the second and fourth lines, are carried forward into the next stanza as the first and third lines. The poem ends by repeating the first and third lines from the first stanza, weaving them with the second and fourth lines from the penultimate stanza.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, tanka on October 12, 2011| 3 Comments »
Somewhere in the mail
a picture of my son
sent yesterday
to eyes
that will not open again.
