[1]
New construction, half this city
is empty, prematurely gutted.
Dark blocks, wide swaths of light
and the knife-edge of a night,
designed for carving.
Such an uncomfortable
clarity that comes
at these hours,
hurtling blindly at a great rate
of speed, every second falling free
from the world until the earth
rolls up again to meet our feet .
The gingko again, new leaves faint
at the edges, a hesitating green,
tempered ebullience,
middle spring. What is inside
is petrified, a relic, scared,
and sacred. All weekend long,
a promised rain
that never really arrived, and so
it goes, the hour, the day,
half-measured, half-guessed at–
an imprecise heart
can still feel exacting.
The blue of day becomes the blue
of night. Low jet planes tracking
their way down, the flame
of a heater inside its glass tube,
genie-like, what would I wish
for? More light, or lightness,
whatever quality it is
that becomes so pronounced
in its absence. That I could
soften this pumice heart,
abrasive, with all its pockets
of emptiness. Another song
of another sparrow. That I
would finally know better.
That a night would stay
a half-lidded eye, the horizon
still furious
with life.
The world today, flooding intermittently.
Dry now, the sky is being willfully obtuse
about just what it is— the white
of an eye, a means of containment.
Nothing about it says finite.
The city seen from a moderate distance—
old glass, new glass, die-cut gulls.
It’s a low ceiling that we operate under.
In copper-hued plate glass,
the transit of clouds.
Sometimes dismay
the price of ownership—
this unruly garden
not soft or settled,but built up
with intent and too-rough edges.
Still, a weed can flower,
and sunlight descends again,
low, springy, rupestrine—
still, joy in organic geometries.
I pick out rocks
with a rusty trowel, an indigo jay
shouts out its indigo call,
but harbingers are tricky—
I don’t know know know
know know, either,
creating so many holes
and filling them all
with seeds the color
of bone, small teeth, life
to spring up from these
sharpest of shards,
from these committals,
small green tongues,
like benedictions—
stilled life, still, life, so go,
grow in peace.
A trepidatious return
this spring, sun-balm
then savage wind, no
attempt at medleys–
heartening in a way
to be so unmoved,
but not dispassionate–
in lashing of rain
some deep defiance.
Let it come.
An eerie squall-light
descends, a sulfur sky,
inscrutable glass–
such unapologetic tones.
At first the night, and then
the reckoning, that special brand
of dread, like a sleeping
limb, still there, present,
painfully so
.
something blooming just outside
the yard not jasmine not lilac not
honeysuckle not any flower I know
or have managed yet to find–
.
if a lesson, like a scent,
intangible,
volatile
[+A million apologies for being derelict in wordpress activity of late]
A hill under rain. Today
no seagulls wheel and whistle
like scratched glass above
a half-filled lot. Which isn’t
to say silence, no,
this city expands
like vapor to fill
a space, yellow cranes
like stork legs, that idea
of nascence–
which doesn’t actually
countermand death– a square of sky
where a building once stood,
rubble-dust dampened by another
sudden shower. A hill
from trees, and land
from sea, just
like the weather, living
here, we run such
a very fine margin–
Tableau: fake flowers
in an enameled clay vase,
the kind with birds
and bird-like lines–
yesterday’s coffee
rewarmed, the bitterness
doused in lait
partiellement écrémé–
bright horns gild
the otherwise silence,
some neighbor listening
softly to Ring of Fire–
beyond, the water.
Yesterday we watched
the tide sweep out,
skookumchuch slipping
through fingers
of land, with vortexes
and contrary eddies,
spoken, taken aback, deadly–
orange urchins, broken
like eggshells, littered
the rocks, exposed
and lit upon by
watchful gulls.
We stood at the edge
and guessed at depth
and a light rain fell,
is falling now, although
it’s difficult to say–
actions muddled by shades
of gray, is it fog, or mist
that settles
on the pines? I don’t
particularly care
to make a distinction–
Half-asleep at the border
crossing, behind some Iranian
family at the duty-free,
the mountains behind
the distant city with still
-illuminated ski areas,
like shocking clouds,
the highway a slick
of electricity–
aren’t we both
always chasing
arrival?
.
Here by morning
the harbour is
the same dirty emerald
as the night before,
raindrops cling
to nascent buds
with no wind
to shake them free
or shift the fog.
A sailor rigs
his boat. The stillness
will push us away, push
us into the water–
first law, another
element, settling
only for what lies beyond
OPTIONAL POETRY 