There’s a bit of prairie
nested between the two
mountain passes
with long long grasses
and with all the wind
today it seemed
like green water
an inland ocean
a true friend
familiar but never
not surprising
and the big hawks
were out today
circling the foothills
like shadows
liberated
from the ground
and their shadows
of shadows
like afterthoughts
and a lone
tumbleweed
crossed 97
still a little green
but it’s early
in the season
and things will build
from here–
I do not like this kind of hope–
fragile as a newborn,
I fear for it. Say what you will,
but tread gently, please–
tundra, tagia-like,
it takes years to grow.
And I know,
I am the very last person
who should lecture you
on this. Tomorrow, till late,
it’s a red flag warning–
high winds, low humidity,
that is, fire weather–
That is, forgive
my impulsivity,
I lack a cool shore.
Imperceptibly cooler here
the breeze a bit nervy
but nothing has changed
except the date
a sense of closing
distance but also
wonder–
the moon narrowing
a door reopening
is it any wonder
that signals
might get crossed?
.
Desert-bound
to sort it out
with arid skies
and flat nights
to measure against–
heat dampening ambition
where small flecked falcons
coast in draggy circles
beneath a pitiless sun
their shadows scripting out
something wholly
unintelligible–
.
and where I can
accept this
No quiero seguir siendo raíz en las tinieblas,
vacilante, extendido, tiritando– Neruda,
and I even then I wondered how much
of you I could know. Do you remember?
We walked in the snow and talked about
the edge of the universe, how contrary
to conjecture it is expanding faster
than ever. Four years. Is it chance,
or could you predict this?
A softer scientist
I see both suns– giver of life
and vengeful destroyer–
and would accept
either, now: no quiero
seguir siendo un cometa ,
en un vacío oscuro, esperando,
esperando a brillar de nuevo—
dark horse, difficult to spot,
erratic and variable, of course
I would celebrate this, cheer
a return, a destructive impact,
obscurity or a sweet spot,
long orbits like long books,
earning their ending– dime,
astrónomo,
¿cuál es su teoría?
It’s hard to fill up this much space,
or loathsome to try. Another day
of crisp blue sky, and that feeling
of having been here before,
or more like a premonition
of a memory, a medley,
vagueness and clarity,
the patterns under trees,
delineated shadows of leaves
and the breeze, only one
seen directly, the other
inferred, and this
is what
preoccupies me–
In the end, does the ocean
feel constrained? Or large lakes
in their basins? Somehow
it’s already late morning
again it’s inevitable
bounded stillness
or bounded movement
the margins have been set
it doesn’t matter how
you fill them.
We passed a black dog
around the hairpin bend
and going up
it then descended
as if to follow us,
its owner having to call
and call. How rapt
those brown eyes,
the wet nose on the scents
about us. And how apt,
as whatever this is that is
trailing me these days,
even up these trails,
it is certainly dogged.
How much harder to write
the open days– calm at dawn
the morning a breeze,
all windows open to prepare
for later heat. The details
are kind: Young maples
have filled the silence
between the pines
with undulating green,
you’d never guess just how
the bank drops off–
Down in the valley
children scream in play,
two girls wailing
like teakettles,
like birds of prey,
and on the porch, lines
of silk spark in succession —
spider webs caught
in a dappled ray,
like so many things,
invisible,
except under just
the right conditions–
Does this feel like water? Overflowing
banks, a drought, both demonstrate
a marked loss of control–
Or, the ghost of steam, water giving up
its form to take on another, but still
remaining water–
(maybe fire then is more apt–
it isn’t, then it is, until
it burns itself out.)
Whatever this is I’m attributing to the moon
it’s probably due to wine or the hour, empty things
exerting more pull, being more
of a lure than those that are full—
.
It’s late, the small dog’s snore belying
its size: or, what seemed large
is small, or, what is small,
seemed large.
OPTIONAL POETRY 