Tag Archives: Listening

OUTSIDE MUSIC

 

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                                                                                       “listen to that music.
                                               The self we hold so dear will soon be gone.”

                                                       – Gary Snyder (“Anger, Cattle and Achilles”)

I’ve packed a rifle since I was ten
following cow trails in these hills
listening to music: the Red Tail’s cry,

its feathers rush overhead,
plummeting for fun—a calling
to another life without accouterments.

In time, we collect clear moments
of ourselves, fresh glimpses stamped
and saved that weigh nothing, cost

nothing, yet live behind our eyes.
No word for the first murmur
of a cow to its wobbly, wet calf

forever branded in our brains—
no word for the outside music
played with poetry and song.

                                               ~

 

Weekly Photo Challenge (1): “Careful” / “Full of Care”

 

LIKE FARMING

Sometimes it takes a week or more
for the words to sink in,
get past the callous crust,
irrigate, grow roots
and flower in the brain.

My scalp must be littered with debris
of brittle stems, wild seed and chaff
hidden in a forest of gray follicles
waiting to germinate
after a good rain.

But I get it now—see the words,
not the speaker, on paper—
each packing its own weight
in an even flow across
a cultivated field of furrows.