Category Archives: Poems 2016

TENUGUI

 

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1.

Other worlds beyond,
beneath the canopies
of the woods gone wild
to shed their leaves,

naked near the Solstice,
unending limbs entwined
unseen unless I move
outside my cluttered mind—

ignored and warmed
by the murmured songs
of smaller gods
I sense when I am gone.
 

2.

It is a mistake, you know,
to map your favorite fishing hole—
to let trout leap from photograph
to fire in the company
of hungry strangers. Best
leave your luck to the mystic
and the magic of cryptic poetry
felt before it’s understood.
 

3.

I imagine a narrow wild rag,
your gift of Raijin thunder
and lightening coming—
an angry Japanese print
I might wear anywhere
outside to get attention
from stormy weather,
for the bladder full of water
slung over his shoulders
we might all profit by.

 

BATHING IN MILK

 

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I watch cows for affirmation
of living simply well without

                                               you know,

those self-centered addictions
like bathing in milk, all the mirrored
poses dressed in wet white film

                                               completely

pure, all the grass or chopped alfalfa
rivers dripping tears of pearls
on the carpet, on the floor

                                               wasted

in front of the hungry—without
that arrogance we are famous for
flaunting—as if the devil cared
about another soul crowded into hell.

Right after a rain, they know the grass
grows taller and stronger at the top
of these steep hills, pausing long to graze
between each step of their calm ascent.

 

RAIN UNDONE

 

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Radar says the rain is done
pelting the tin roof, giggling
in the downspouts, in the black
super moonless, all-night storm
I slept through mostly—says

rumors of miracles and magic
cannot be reasons for the present
cold and wet upon my bare chest, or
flashlight drippings, diamonds
sliding down the rain gauge.

I believe what I want, personify
the needs of the smaller elements,
the addicts in our dry community:
all the off-the-wagon drunks afloat
with the miracle of rain undone.

 

 

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BLACK AND WHITE MOON

 

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Of all the deities,
she rises quickly
as we spin eastward
into the present tense
illuminated in a dark sky.

The gray seems blue,
oak trees in fright, filigreed
with filtered light rising free
of earthly probabilities—
after all is said and done.

The natives need wild gods
and goddesses to endure
the nonsense, the unfeeling
truth with no hues offered
for love or compassion.

 

PERIGEE-SYZYGY 2016

 

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Busy days before a pineapple express arrives
with a forecast two-inch rain before Christmas,
we wait with a glass of wine for meat on the fire,

for the Wagyu bulls trucked from Idaho in the
super moonlight over Donner, down Highway 99
to be unloaded, we watch the ridgeline, see a coyote

laughing in precursor clouds, hear him giggle
across the creek and we are lifted with our eyes
to all the celestial possibilities we don’t want

explained. It is enough to be found and noticed
as the moon peeks through the oak trees, to be
together like children howling with what they see.

 

TWO COWS

 

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                    The clouds you ride are tissue-paper thin.
                         – Red Shuttleworth (“If You Had a Tail Fins Caddy”)

High on the mountain, two isolated cows surprised
graze thick fog without wet bags, act guilty found
in one another’s company before their inevitable trip

to town when we gather, the price of truancy
they seem to know or hear through my eyes
and the mist between us, or pure imagination

that blooms personified from my disappointment.
A little too content to be on vacation from maternity
and needy nurseries, the mother in me understands.

Up here, the footing is treacherous, each tentative step
measured against all the break-through, downhill
possibilities—up here the poems hang in oak trees.

 

FOR GOOD

 

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Warm green December, grass ahead
of fewer cattle, young bulls work
at making friends in a perfect world
of tight fences and swinging gates
everyone respects for a little while.

On the uneasy edge of drought,
we will imitate fat calves lazing,
content to watch the show unfold
into the ordinary—nothing remarkable,
but with any luck a change for good.

 

FORTUNE TELLERS

 

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No wet redwood reflection, I look past black morning,
scan the radar for a chance the last forecast stalled
before it got away to who-cares-where into the future
on the other side of the Sierras, then search for stars beyond
the gray for an out-of-habit game plan between rains:
soft warm earth too wet to work too far from home.

Forty years ago I slowed, took the Fowler exit off
Highway 99 for Madam Sophia’s neon sign of things
to come my way from the landscape of my palm:
low range of callouses spilling into the deep canyon
of my heart—she read both hands and lit a candle,
saw lots of water in my future and I was glad.

Dawn is gray above the green and last year’s bleached
dry feed, chorus line of sycamores undress white limbs,
show flesh between their rosy leaves to tease a good
hard rain to bring the creek to sweep its cobbled bed
of four-years’ deadfall in a rush to wipe out water gaps:
fixing fences into a future that’s not quite guaranteed.

 

 

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TWO DOVES AT DAWN

 

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Sun glints from their feathered breasts
like ornaments in the crumbling Live Oak
that watched women grind acorns

when it was small, lost between the rocks
that have seen it all. First light near
the Solstice blinds the mind of time,

moments independent from our histories
and the monetary cravings of humanity
that are enough—once or twice a year,

after a rain, to awaken veneration
streaming through a mountain gap
to pick this old dirt—to expose

the tracks of moccasins in midden
walking with native gods, just long
enough to become a believer again.

 

XMAS LETTER, 2016

 

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Dear Paul, I write in fear for damn-near
all the gods, the large and small, the holy
and profane deities that will evacuate this
brave new world, flee under fire: open
season, no bag limit for their wild diversity.
We must hone keen eyes and listen closer,
old ears to the ground and its grumbling,
save space between the lines to nourish
and receive epiphanies and not lose faith
in the hapless hands and hearts of humanity.

The rain gods have returned on time to keep
the green alive in this canyon, hope beyond
the numbers and the market to carry on
the old ways, light fires for chunks of meat
to celebrate their visitations with friends
and family, nod and lift a glass to common
senses. The large and small will gather
in our dancing shadows, dodging smoke
upon each arriving breath from up or down
canyon—open space for them all around us.