Oh Keats it’s late
and there’s no bright star
no stars at all strange
given the clear day earlier
but life has its ways
of imposing
even lighter than air
it still gets in the way
I know that you know this
how some nights can arrive
like an unwelcome guest
and with such limitless depth
it keeps one awake
just as easily as light would
In the distance the foghorn
at the mouth of the Quillayute,
unseen singing oh how the eyes deceive–
like some mechanical dove
or breath above a bottle,
two hollow notes,
one in constant falling.
As the campfire dies smoke
is held in close by the damp, the ocean
lost in the whole of the night,
but out there ships pass
under a starless sky,
and all that lies beyond them
is tomorrow–
You’re making loaves of bread, now,
same recipe, but each a different result,
this one tasting like less but risen more.
We drink in mild heat under the shade
of the fruit trees, and wonder about
that plant growing up the fence, with
thumb-long thorns and translucent
berries. It might be poisonous,
you say, you’re going to pull it.
A few plums, green, incipient, roll
hard underfoot, not yet edible, and these,
never to be. How sad, you say, it is,
to be sad in Summer. The sky stays
open, without a hint of closure.
Already summer lingers
at the edges of night,
staying light until late,
the sun spills pink
on the crown
of mountain ranges
that surround us.
And how strange
that until today
I truly thought
that restraint
was the only way—
it’s evenings
like these
that are designed
to test it.
The sky too blue,
it’s impossible to think.
Along the fence
the columbines bloom
in neon hues, split into
alien chambers, spurs.
Along the road,
banks of snow, no—
cottonwood down,
filling the air with fluff,
an invitation to float,
a call to subvert, a paean
to the arbitrary–
although they say
that finding personal meaning
in ordinary things is just one
of many signs of delusion.
Still, on the radio
three different times,
on three different stations,
I heard cha-cha-cha-changes—
and there was no giant
earthquake, of course,
that guess as good as any
attempt to tack sense
on to nature’s permutations,
that is, as doomed
as Bowie’s tracings–
while in the grass
a sleeping cat,
a brazen bird, just how
many ways this minute
could have went—
but this was it,
and now it’s gone,
and only the seeds
betrayed any sort
of motion.
This a lunar phase, then,
finding the sun too direct
in its dealings. A dream—
half-real, the cool hallway
of a summer house, dim
and still, with windows
opened to night air.
Given enough time,
a fear of the dark
is roundly displaced,
the moon slakes
some thirst that can’t
be named, but comes
awfully close to respite—
Don’t we all have our tides?
And the summer stars,
they seem to swing lower,
so tempting to pluck one,
two, my heart concave,
my heart a bowl, a place
for things to collect, to settle—
And isn’t it then natural
to long for something
so full and sound and whole?
Life-red, the stems of the maple sapling,
the spinach that’s already bolted
in the heat, unseasonable, unless
we accept that a change
has been made, summer starting
earlier now, outdoors at least,
where the green is frank,
the crimson exposed,
a leaf is a leaf, nothing less,
nothing more.
Maybe it isn’t a need to leave
or a need to stay, it’s a need
for space–
we’re going up that?
was said, an ocean headland
scramble, the trail a crease
in the palm of upright sand,
and the ocean, all and always,
constant and eroding–
which in itself implies
time, these smooth
flat stones a bit
metaphysical, dark
when drenched, laced
white when dry, left
by the tide amongst
a thousand clacking
barnacles, the comfort
of a place of regular departure
and arrival, in two minutes
we had scaled the thing,
left everyone else
below on the beach,
and gasping stared out
at the grey stilled sea,
four foot waves now
crumpled paper,
and all this to say–
I slept so easily, there,
and now returned, I don’t.
A reluctant return, a drag
behind the motion, why?
I still think of you now
and again. A year, five, a loss
of distinction, like water,
difficult to define
or bind. Is it because
I’ve stopped trying,
trusting blindly in gravity,
sheer weight of will,
pale and barren but
exerting some pull?
Another year condensed
into a drop, the phase
changes, properties
too, but the laws
are adhered to (but
which? but whose?)
If the night were a note
I think it would be low. And
if I were a moon I think
by now I’d know.
Robber jay
soft gray to belie
an edge
a storm of feathers
around a head
to take
from a hand
like that
so flagrantly
and to plan
the thievery
in pairs
in silent skeletal
trees rising
below this scraggy
summit
against a bare sky
no view no hint
of the drop
just mist
bright like bleach
and to live without fear
is to be free yes
unless
you’re casting it off
onto others
OPTIONAL POETRY 