Category Archives: Poems 2011

1.
Bone worn smooth, blade shaped
by years of sharpening, shaving hair
before folding into a pocket’s retreat,

but ready. I am naked without its weight
in airports, among the broad spectrum
of humans I never see on TV—

all the unabashed and withdrawn souls
traveling, pressed into pens and trying
to get along quietly to their destinations.

Polite instead, no one talks politics!
But back on earth, we forget
once we lose our fear of flying.

2.
Cows grade the ridges now with calves
dotted close behind a storm, warm days
and green leaking through bleached dry feed,

heads down, mowing mouthfuls of both
up the hill. They have forgotten me,
grown deaf to the diesel sound of alfalfa,

not a lifted head from the frenzied
harvest grinding in their ears, bellies
tight and grass taller by the hour. We

humans would not believe such good fortune
and worry instead of when it will end,
when the worst presents itself for payment.

3.
In and out of shadow, even baby calves
can tell time, buck and run into dawn
and cry for mother in the gloaming.

No weekends off for even the old girls,
no Sabbath without cud to chew
in breezy shade, days have no names

to look forward to, just the whisper
of harbingers in the air. I, too,
cannot remember what day it is

this morning, horses still wait
in the dark for hay, and I believe
I can feel, smell rain on the way.

                                                    who must turn
                    everything to words while they, so alive
                    need so few to speak their loves.
                                    – Keith Wilson (“The Streets of San Miguel”)

Some sing, so under-joyed that the trees weep
beneath a veil of blues, a song that struggles,
wriggles to be set free as a missive to the gods

grown deaf to the old tunes. Some can whistle
in the dawn to claim the dark shade, but when
the sky slips down the mountain like a fog,

I see all the dear faces gone and search my box
of words, reaching deeply as I dare, when
holding-on to a kind thought is often enough.

                                                                in memory of Jane Nash & Old Visalia—
                                                                ‘a true friend from beginning to end.’

There seemed time—
like an endless ribbon
over hillocks stitched
with barbed wire and
split redwood, then
steel T-posts
through a sea of grass.

There seemed time
to get it all done—fix
the float, re-hang
the carried gate
and repay the favors
of neighbors and strangers—
to say the right things.

There seemed time
to visit the infirmed
waiting for sunset,
welcome the newborn
and guide the child
with love and truth—
there seemed time.

Evenings beyond fences, we run
among newborn calves, cigarette
and glass of wine listening to

our childish glee and laughter,
each buck and run unique displays
of finding legs for the future.

To the drone of local news
leaking through the screen door,
we plan tomorrow, replay

cattle strategies punctuated
by coyotes up canyons
and an answer from the dog.

We could be on the bow of a ship
watching the world pass, or
astraddle a log in a swollen river

as new mothers come to water—
never the same landscape
until the light is gone.

                    At night make me one with the darkness.
                    In the morning make me one with the light.
                             -Wendell Berry (“Prayers and Sayings of the Mad Farmer”)

In time, we will give into dreamless sleep,
rest with the dust and debris of other lives,
within the comfort and compost of grand trees,

eventually. One earth, the fertile dirt awaiting
seed, and rain, and with the sun’s pull upward,
the possibility of fruit—let me be one leaf

open at dawn, let these old knees find grace,
impaired ears, the tune. One last slow dance
with you among the shadows of the moon.

                                                                for Robbin

                    Don’t own so much clutter that you will be relieved to see
                    your house catch fire.
                                   – Wendell Berry (“Prayers and Sayings of the Mad Farmer”)

One would think with age that utility
might parallel the flesh, lend assistance
with our last breath, yet the old barn bulges

with the past leaking through the bats
and boards of weathered one-by-twelves,
tin roof rusty, wind-turned at the edges.

Beyond the locked green doors, silver veil
of cobwebs, trunks in dark corners, scurry
of black widows saved for this moment

passed from before we were born.
We see what they could not burn—
the weakness of heart and the clutter

cleared from their minds as relinquished
totems of another time. We come to know
our blood, cling to tokens of who we are.

                                 Let me wake in the night
                                 and hear it raining
                                 and go back to sleep.
                                       – Wendell Berry (“Prayers and Sayings of the Mad Farmer”)

Upon the roof and off the eave:
cascades to soothe a dream
when no urgency awaits,

when earthly strategies step aside
and praise what man cannot create—
let me sleep so soundly!

Let me trust the land endures
man’s ambitions to claim
a holiday for its creatures,

as earth and sky make love
a priority of life. O’ musty
scent of after-rain, let me

wake to freely sail among
white cumulus in the grand
regatta of blue sky seas.

                    He is the one who breaks down the walls
                    and when he works, he works in silence.
                               – Rainer Maria Rilke (“Das Stundenbuch”)

The mortar crumbles between old stones
bright lichen claims with color, little islands
of fire burning within long shadows of fall.

Even in Eden, a white flag meant nothing
at all. Outside, the persistent grin and wait
with infinite patience, move their troops

at every opportunity to surround and incorporate
our certain fate. I may disguise my flesh
or burn holes in darkness, temporarily—fool

the truth for a moment—but I surrender now
and swear profane allegiance to the king
of all things, drawn most, however,

to his amusing ladies, just waiting
to sing and dance around the fire, to celebrate
the wild beyond our fortresses and fears.

*              *              *              *              *              *              *

Rainer Maria Rilke

DAS STUNDENBUCH (The Book of Hours)
                    translated by Robert Bly

All of you undisturbed cities,
haven’t you ever longed for the Enemy?
I would like to see you besieged by him
for ten endless and groundshaking years

Until you were desperate and mad in suffering
finally, in hunger, you would feel his weight
He lies outside the walls like the countryside
He knows very well how to endure
longer than those he comes to visit

Climb up on your roofs and look out:
his camp is there. His morale will not falter
His number will not decrease, he will not weaken
He sends no one into the city to threaten
or promise and no one to negotiate

He is the one who breaks down the walls
and when he works, he works in silence.

Every day begins in the dark,
while horses wait for a sign
of movement, another awakening

to fluffy alfalfa, or the sound
of diesel arriving, the augur
of aluminum heartbeats under saddle,

under hooves of nervous and eager
friends dancing in a gooseneck drum.
Certain things become ingrained

in the psyche, incorporated
conclusions that make us shy
and hard to halter, but we

will give-in, sign and notarize
another day’s dark beginnings
on this common ground.