poem 73

[now what to do]

 

squash and cucumbers

push open black wire gates

meant to protect not imprison

the wide lush leaves

startling yellow flowers

gleaming powerful tendrils

twining and lifting and triumphal

seemingly unaware

fragility forgotten in precious moments 

striving beneath summer’s

full moon and blazing sun

dreaming with no thought

of raking hooves claws teeth

raccoon skunk and opossum

 

[no way to warn them]

poem 72

Sweet Scales Irrevocably Tipped

 

how is it we bid farewell

not knowing what lies beyond

witless we empty the well

as if our soundings play true

not hollow knocks on death’s door

goodbye water goodbye

 

as if we ignore don’t know

what comes next already arrives

tomorrow just there just there

when we tell ourselves big lies

our children’s green world burning

goodbye water goodbye

 

somewhere else far flung beyond

earth submerges her shores her cliffs

her meadows her bays our homes

our ruin hot greed melting

ice beneath entire islands

goodbye goodbye goodbye

poem 71, v.3

Itza wants Peace

whatever that means

late at night she wakes

in urgency

in cramping muscles  

in doomness

[i tell her doomness is not a word]

and she insists

rants and raves

that whatever

letters one pulls together

are words—words as if