poem 77

circumscribed life

 

today, like every other

before today—for long enough

that i’m beginning

to forget my former life

except that life never

ceases to spin in grief

filled pools i fall through

 

today, i water veggies

and hope for courage

to water tomorrow

and hope for a harvest

as if harvesting holds

promises I dare not

explore or wish for

 

today, i schedule resechedule

online students so necessity

is met and not left gnawing

at the doors, which no longer

open to children this singing

house silenced teaching

only love online is hard

 

today, like every other—

for far too long—i drift

my fingers along the

closed dusty piano lid

and wish i could bear

to not play—the notes

rub the broken edges

 

today, like every other

the notes tear open

thinly covered wounds

while laying a new solace

a fresh layer of skin

holding me together

as if i’m about to pour away

poem 76

 

poem 75

 

poem 74

 miracles

 

a three night

early june freeze

then two weeks on

a desiccating and deadly

one-fifteen

one-twelve

one-fourteen

one-ten

days on days

pepper flowers wilt

and fall unloved

cucumbers and squash

languish under

hasty set shady arches

tomato vines burn

themselves entwined on

scorching metal frames

bees nowhere to be seen

 

 

one honeybee found lumbering

from flowers to water dish

over days on end

more bees come

breaking the grievous silence

honey cutter wild bumble

teeny and blimpy

solitary and hivers

humming raucously

sleeping in flowers

under leaves

in cedars maples pines

under roots a damp haven

a cutters’ paradise

as i water they land

in my sparse white hair

momentarily sharing

pausing on my shoulders

before impatient zzz’s  

push me away

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                

poem 71

Itza wants Peace

whatever that means

late at night

she wakes in

urgent cramps

muscles parched in doomness

[i tell her doomness is not a word]

she insists rants raves

that whatever letters

one pulls together to express are words

—words as if

poem 70

sky rumbles

bombers streak

Itza stares

beyond blue

layers shift

fire out once

more streaks tear

home strip fuel

up fill up

rip southward

again and

Itza pins

wire frames shut

hands aching

startling thought

terrible

how what saves

douses homes

forests fields

skills planes born

of dropping

red hot death

somewhere else

poem 69

our most reliable harvest

rocks of all sizes

sharp edged

multitudes jammed

in loose fines

 

only now after a lifetime

digging prying hauling

complaining

only now i understand

your precious nature

 

how beautifully you stack up

and stay put [for the most part]

how you keep our steep land

and not let it slide away

in stormy muddy slurries

 

your rings of stability

rubble walls holding

soil and tomatoes

basil and onions

garlic and artichokes

 

how you catch fragile choke fronds

how you give their knotted roots

something to grasp

so they can hold their thick stalks tall

so their heavy heads might chase the sun

poem 68

Littlecity 

V.

we never forget love swirlin’ under stardust

swaying west in spins defying knowledge  

fueling decades of dreams we hold and burnish

like great-granny’s tiny spoon collection

began when her young man sent her one

during the war he never spoke of once he came home

never explaining how he got it or nothin’ 

about the brightly enameled castle on real gold plate

except how the castle looked in the moonlight

reminding him of Molly and their last night

curled together under a ratty wool blanket

in his dad’s old blue pickup top of buckthorn ridge

and how remembering lovin’ and talkin’ and cudlin’

in her arms got him home alive even if nothing else

hid inside him made sense no more

to keep on living he somehow found and bought Molly

another teeny gold enameled spoon every april

every year a different picture but always springtime

until he dropped dead filling in on the green chain

two days before he turned seventy

poem 67

debris jam

letters refuse

unwords writhe

broken piles

serifs caught

on ligatures

no smooth

fusing no

colors sounding

nothing

poem 66

online orchestra

my dear students

my dear colleagues

final project

penultimate—the moment before

you are in that moment 

you are that moment 

moment where practice before

where the instant of performance hovers 

we are always penultimate

always more works to learn

more performances to be played

alone     now             together     someday

for a few more moments 

we share time in late april

poem 65

Littlecity

IV.

our town—a muddy mix remembered and forgotten

seven generations long and we all forget when we fall in love

the ravages of skinhate losin' all meaning for a moment

in april in may in october when it seems love colors us equal

our children reflectin’ pools of our love and our hate

more mixed than not yet the lines remain between distant relations

held captive by what no longer holds meaning given meaning

in alcohol meth ridden weedy backyards backforties in pickup

beds where love consummated too soon too young so very

beautiful under oaks filtering starlight and dawn when we rush

home to crawl through double sash wooden windows peeling paint

poem 64

Littlecity

III.

morning sun pours yellow through

Café’s sixteensquare singlepane windows

worn wood mulleins pattern greening hope

as late april arcs and stretches across pineplank tables

young wives—some fresh and some already wore down

with furrows digging in for the long haul—

they laugh at the silence of their grimy working men

for whom silence is enough after mill racket

who tuck their raw oily sap soiled hands too coarse

for their wives’ tender still pink cheeks into pockets

with more sawdust than bucks and stop at the Longhorn

for one beer that somehow morphs into six or eight

they stay late are lonely are confused by their shiny wives

confused about the shattered wives they broke

angry at the computerized new trucks they can’t afford

telling each other how they love their old ford or chevy

or dodge or jeep held together with balin’ wire twisted 

busted knuckles bloody—their bright lives going dark

gone

poem 63

Littlecity

II.

young folks from outta town

with means [whatever that is]

bought a failing coffee shop

called it Café and started sellin’

organic lattes and chai and avocado toast

with bread from the bakery ran

out of a knothole kind of space

and lemon squares with drizzle

locals surprised to like such oddities

most days come drink plain dripped

black coffee and chew the fat

they order a fancy coffee and toast

to celebrate birthdays new jobs a baby

or whatever there is to cheer about

and to grieve together cause it’s easier

than grievin’ alone

poem 62

Littlecity

I.

busted town

held up by the casino

new fire trucks

new ambulances

new medical clinic

new dental chairs

new psych help and yet

empty store fronts wait openin'

wait boomdays surely comin'

the Lumberjack so long closed

its windows so lonely they weep threads

from abandoned hand-tatted lace

scratched chipped white plates

saucers flatware pots pans pitchers

coffee cups lined up wanting

hardware store shuttered

twisting greying lumber

crushes rotting stickers outback

...

For Thursday April 8th

poem 61

how fine this rising day

yet unexplored 

full of night's blue chill

poem 60

verdant foxtails rip skyward
knowing within without doubt
that dire drought parches its way east
pushing whispy damp mare tails
too high for rain to fall
too high to wetten whistles
they know seedtails must germinate
and swell and burst full and fertile
and dry and fly and fall widespread
like the coming secretive fires refusal
to reveal searing conflagrations ahead

poem 59

this day i fell into awareness knowing holding realizing

a year of biscuit baking already slipped past

and only as i whisked almond and hazelnut and barley flours

with more cinnamon and nutmeg and raisins than seems decent

the quick flipping fork clicking on the metal bowl ringing anniversary 

closing the music studio the first batch of biscuits and disbelief

the first deaths already numbers behind the eyes dying on screen

boring jagged memory holes in my heart in millions of hearts 

this day honey bees return to tiny purple maple flowers 

and hummers to the red and white salvia 

and peas stretch a row of promises in green pods

like our broken hearts our voices made silent our dashed dreams

our loses and brokenness hope coalesces in breathdaring whispers