This looks like a great project for August
Off to find some postcards…
July 4
A cool cloudy morning,
leniency after the weekend’s
heat. A dog throws itself
down the ravine
in pursuit of a ball,
the neighbor
unleashes a cascade
of glass bottles
getting ready
to pack up the house.
All day in the mountains
yesterday, sweat, scree,
snow. Aching today,
a reminder, the summit
hard-earned, but elation
tempering the bite
of elevation,
and descent
always less benign
than we thought.
July 2
Morning, overcast, insistent doves.
A bright gray, an unsettled wind
saying soon this will all
blow over. The lake houses
all full this weekend, bits
of chatter from other
porches, I mean,
it is what it is—
or nearer to home
the silent neighbor,
surveying his swaying
grape vines
.
Our grapes are dusky-hued,
small beads, the birds
aren’t even interested yet,
the basil deep green
and starting to bolt–
expectations
a difficult thing.
Still, the pepper
flowers haven’t dropped
yet, blue sky in the North–
the whole neighborhood
starts walking the loop
before the heat starts,
breathless fragments
rising over the hill:
When she’s in town
she keeps us pretty busy;
I felt kind of bad, because, you know…
I keep remembering Holly–
how the old dog
would have barked,
even near the end,
and has it been
a year, or two?
.
A strange thing
this newly-felt
denominator,
present over past,
a boat at anchor
on the lake–
you don’t feel
the drifting much then
but look how far
we’ve come
June 30
Still light as day
this late
the urge to linger
is compelling
a cesura
and June gives way
like a sandbank
I should pack
it’s not even that hot
but these days
there is a muggy weight
to motivation
why change
these hours
are made to sit
and make plans
to pin the days
in place
tomorrow
is a new day
but it isn’t here yet
June 27
A bowl of limes
in Mexican pewter
its lines drew me
at the thrift store
coarse engravings
a primordial river
and lighter than
it looks
.
A lime tree does better
in drought
than in abundance
deprivation
at its sour heart
although with so much juice
it’s tempting
to say sweetness
of course it isn’t
but is also not bitter
the childlike green
belies the nuance
.
It is a promise
in a way
to keep a bowl
replenished
to work with
transient things
cooking a reductive
practice
each meal an ending
from life, life
and never another one
quite the same
June 26
Cool breeze riling
the curtains
the green seclusion
of a melon
summer is a visitor
more than anything else
evasive
as that dream
right upon waking, cut
as it was ripening
.
In the yard we drank
a thin tempranillo
a dragonfly hung by
with mirage wings
and rhubarb stalks wilted
in omnipotent heat
no silence is alike
varietals and temperaments
and these the hands
of a graceless vinter
.
Still light late
warm skin
the remainder of the day
eyes still stinging
from wine country grass
the ground leached heat
it and time in a bottle
a twenty-twelve cab
a good year
but so is any
really just
for having been
June 25
A hematoma where the shot
went in, sore arms and clouds–
that kind of aching morning
that passes too quickly
into day, piebald sky,
the palest blue,
a tepid invitation.
And down to the waterfront
the sound of progress,
or of progression, metal
frames sprouting up,
or expulsed from the earth–
a shower of sparks
by the welder’s elbow,
a joint, a joint is where
you feel it first, a change
in the weather,
a thing giving way
June 24
Where does it come from?
The sky, like rain,
or from the far corner
at night, when the world
is rendered in ground glass,
from outside, a front,
low pressure or high–
I’ve never believed
in inexorable, but these days
do give me pause
.
As Simon said to Garfunkle,
I get the news I need
on the weather report
and as God said to Noah,
hey, you better build a boat,
although charitably,
a flood could be billed
as an uprising–
.
Today on the rooftop
several swallows
flying or falling
at unexpected angles,
one hungry sparrow
and water pooled
on aluminum tables
and no one else around,
the city below a sea
of sound and indiscriminate
figures, and in low clouds
an airplane, felt, not seen,
so much bearing down
even up here
June 22
The gingko, green fractal
reaching in the breeze–
there is geometry
in a quiet evening,
seen and unseen
structures–
the sky dimming
like a screen, still
blue, still blue,
and the arc of a jetliner,
the beams and girders
of the closest build site,
its lightbulbs, tungsten,
in metal cages, old
and comforting, just that
one room lit, not even a room
yet, a prototype, the lack
that comes before,
that emptiness that is
at the heart of everything,
call it potential,
or, a ghost
June 21
a roadside stand
cherries
in their sunburn hues
the sky and the Chevy
flat baby blue
the clouds roll right off
and crooked birds
fall into paper hills
and sometimes nothing
is what comes from nothing
some mylar sheeting
a layer of dust
OPTIONAL POETRY 