Tag Archives: poetry

GRASS

 

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Within a week of late October rains, a forest
of green blades twisting, chasing warm
golden light between canyon horizons,

reaching while we sleep to a waxing moon
sailing south across black starlit seas—
a germination thick as hair on a dog’s back.

Hard clay turned soft underfoot, under cloven
hooves, out of the bleached and brittle rubble
of last year’s feed, a spreading miracle of green

as the earth stirs with another birth of grass.
And we are tied to it, mentally shackled
and physically restrained to work within her

moody generosity, daring not with word
or thought to piss her off—we have our gods
and goddesses we adore, stealing glimpses

every chance we get outside to pause
and praise them. All our totems, the bird
and animal people of the Yokuts know

our names, know our habits, show us the way
this canyon was designed to support life,
here and beyond us, with a crop of grass.

 

 

  Weekly Photo Challenge: “Chaos”

 

PROPAGATING GREEN

 

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The seed beneath the dry, dead grasses
waits, as we have waited to begin again
with rain, to plant themselves, screw and twist

into damp dirt, to swell and burst—first
hands open to feed the living, applaud life,
millions of ovations standing on their own.

Each a miracle rising from hollow, blond
and brittle stems, from the dust of bare
red clay and sandy ground—alive and green.

Our private holiday, hope and relief let go
to breathe freely, to work fully within
this new beginning for one more poem.

 

WHEN WE WERE BOYS

 

I read outrage from old hinterland poets
on Facebook to stir my blood, enflame
my brain, pretend that words might quell

injustice with compassion, find humanity
commonplace, or search old dialogues:
mountains, rivers and streams, for peace—

translations to bring home from foreign
lands and times that seem to work here
for a little while. I read to write

when I’m tongue-tied, lend my gravelly
voice to the ancient chorus and try
to sound nice, only to find assonance

puts most folks to sleep. No one needs
to read anymore, translate marks on paper
into better thoughts than when we started—

now that we have open minds and let
technology have its way with us, do it
all as we lay back to enjoy the ride.

No one needs to saddle-up in the dark,
untrack cold-backed broncs to mount
before going to work—they all had names

and personalities when we were boys.
No one needs to reach inside for more
than what we thought we had in those days.

                                                            for Red

 

CONTENT WITH CHANCE

 

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Desk light inside, tree frogs hang on the screen door
stroked by the gentle damp breathing of a downcanyon
breeze, deep dark mouth clear to the mountain pines.

No stars, all black, we wait—anticipate cloudy daylight
together, a red sky dawn and rain, slow at first
approaching, its tiny footsteps soft upon dry leaves.

No new amazement, this cleansing of dust, this erasing
memories and tracks that leaves the ground fresh,
that may swell the seed to burst into green cotyledons,

open-handed to receive sky blessings, small miracles-
in-waiting—a chance, we dream. Wishing is not praying
yet among the bone-dry years, broken skeletons

of old oak trees flailing across hillsides in herds
just before Halloween, Buckeyes drip with bloody
leaves while goblins claim what we cannot see.

 

THE DREAM

 

October 27, 2014

October 27, 2014

 

A slice of time incised from ranch
routines, an Indian poet-in-residence
for a week, Jack Kerouac on the wind

escaping Montana’s sub-zero to write
about dreams. He thinks in Crow,
undulating hands stroke the grace

between them, never touching speak,
pleasant sounds of rushing water gush
from his lips I almost understand.

I envy this bear of a man
who brings brightly painted ponies
and the Little Big Horn with him,

the feathered glory of reenactments
and contact with the old chiefs
that breathe past and present here

upon my skin. What a way to go out
to become one with time, turn the soul
loose and gather ‘round the fire

of mountain men, all the old cowboys
and pioneers, all the natives done with
trying to make a living on this ground.

                                                 for Henry Real Bird

 

TRADING LABOR

 

February 12, 2015

February 12, 2015

 

A black and white macro of weathered wood,
corrals and hills beyond, old guitar song
and chiseled men follow smoke to the ridgeline

and back to the fire and branding iron. A ringing
cell phone colors riders, a black calf stretched
between two sorrels—blue denim action

of men and women, old neighbors dancing,
each genuflecting to a moment on the ground.
“We’re branding calves,” a limp loop

answers from the corner, looking down
canyon past hazy orchards, somewhere town
as if he could see the caller, the papered desk,

stretch the thirty miles. A guy with a drone
reports, “We got ’em all.” Empty white tables
and chair legs licked by green tongues wait

with meat, bread and beans on an oak fire, ice chest
beer below a towel, soap and water, plastic glasses
and fresh jug of whiskey ready on a tailgate.

Close again, the chatter of visiting face to face,
gossip, stories and mysteries unveiled, fading
with cows with calves strung up the canyon home.

 

CONTEMPLATION

 

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There is no urgency,
no destination worthy
ignorance along the way—

even on the familiar
road, nothing stays
as it was—and probing

eyes never quite the same.
All the assumptions,
short-cuts to conclusions

we claimed as instinct
that never were:
laziness and wishful

thinking, yet
we blaze away,
unload both barrels

trying to eliminate
our smoky confusion.
We will get there

soon enough. Make
each moment rich
as a Chinese poet.

                    I venture no more than a low whisper,
                    afraid I’ll startle the people of heaven.

                         – Li Po (“Inscribed on a Wall at Summit-Top Temple”)

 

 

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: ‘Shine’

 

JUST ANOTHER SISYPHUS

 

December 10, 2015

December 10, 2015

 

1.
Small at first, rivers spill
High Sierra snowmelt,
water pure as it will ever be

falling to the call of gravity
and time’s relentless roar
over granite smooth, worn

by cataracts and cascades
dressed in rainbow mists
ascending to the whispers

among a million pines—
a timbered mat of arrows
headed to the sky.

2.
We have been there
in our perfect innocence
before our courses

changed the world
as it changed us.
I think it was the waiting

for the war I never served
that made me see that
spilling the blood of boys

could not kill ideas
or forever eliminate
a differing philosophy.

3.
Like water pooled
I am damned again
in someone else’s business

at the whims of men
I’ll never understand
beyond their lust for power

and their addiction to greed
while dancing to the tune
of men and women working

with their heads and hands.
I stay the slope and cling
to the sound of the river

chasing lyrics on paper
since the war—poor poetry
released like mist ascending

to the muse that must
report my plodding progress
to goddesses and gods.

 

NOWHERE PEOPLE 2

 

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                            another heaven and earth, nowhere people know.
                                   – Li Po (“Mountain Dialogue”)

We are the nowhere people blessed
in nameless places where waves of gold
glint off grasses beyond long shadows

that stream downhill at dawn and dusk,
beyond the instant politic of greed
that lusts for more power over

humanity: all the great hearts secreted
away, shared in private moments as if
outlaws. We are the nowhere people

living an ever-changing dream
of the old ways practiced season
after season, as easily forgotten

as fading chimney smoke—
our ascension from this earth
that flesh cannot escape.

 

A WONDER IS WHAT IT IS

 

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                                        and what’s the work?
                                                            To ease the pain of living.
                                        Everything else, drunken
                                                            dumbshow.

                                                                      – Allen Ginsberg

I have no appetite for news, yet addicted
to reason less obvious
than the Emperor’s latest haberdashery.

Coffee conversation stops
to the quiet glide of a Cooper’s Hawk
beneath the roof overhead, limp legs

dangling, quail warm before breakfast.
She has chosen the four of us
to interrupt, to remind of naked grace

in a profane world—to ease the taloned
hold of the drunken dumbshow
before we hay the cows

and we feel blessed
for prolonged moments of wonder unwound
to remember who we are.

 

 

‘A WARNING TO MY READERS’