OPTIONAL POETRY

This maple’s a mess
but might have been worse

there must have been
some arborist

come to cut back limbs
to stumps, I don’t

recall it but then
the evidence

was mostly hidden
by leaves;

it took
a lot of wind

to get to this
point.

I also had to ask
if this gate

has always been here?
Walking through

a door being
a cue to forget,

but still I wonder
about how hard

it is to see
daily presences,

requiring four
seasons, at least,

to get the full,
clear, picture.

i.

Again with these nights
like oceans

they come in fast
and strong—

it’s easy to forget
just how much

of this earth
is coastline—

roughly the same
distance

as from here
to the moon.

 

ii.

Distance first
is cruel,

and then kind,
and then necessary—

our closest star is
alpha Centauri,

and it isn’t even a star,
but two,

a visual binary,
close, at 23 AUs,

or 3,440,751,030 km,
so take that as you will.

 

iii.

Everything is mostly
empty space,

99.999999999999%
or so of each atom

that makes us up,
and maybe that’s why

we tend to fill
our time

then top it off
with complaints

that there’s never
enough—

 

iv.

Or, a void
is tough work.

 

v.

There’s chemistry
or alchemy at play,

loneliness a liquid,
freedom a gas—

it’s hard to say
how solids

come in, except
that it’s all a phase,

nothing stays
or lasts

 

vi.

but so much
expands

to fill a space,
and it’s not

that nothing’s left,
it’s just so far

apart that only
from a distance

do things ever
still seem whole

 

vii.

But backing up,
things slip

from our grasp—
the moon

is illuminating
the air outside,

and to see is to know,
and to know

is roughly
equal parts gain

and loss

In the weeds
and getting

pretty damn salty–
this week descends

into the colloquial–
no well-heeled

words could ever
do it justice,

too upscale,
they don’t get tired

out, stretched
to cover

multitudes,
they miss nuance,

don’t say just
how weary it gets–

preservation, versus
hanging on

the line–
only one hints

at the prospect
of falling,

but knows that
you won’t,

as you can swing it,
babe, you’re golden–

is hope in
the fucking rough

Late at night
it gets so hollow–

the stars precise,
nearly clinical,

the silence of it all
silencing all.

So now
we’ve learned

it’s possible
to choke

on open air
this cold–

it leaves
a bitter taste,

and once again
open space

is not the end all be
all that I always

expect,
having failed

to differentiate
the land

from the promise
we’ve attached.

This day won’t budge
it’s thick as ice
caked on a west-
facing windshield
at once dense
and brittle with its
inherent duality
of fragility and
danger we only
expect one
at once at least
I am surprised
when a weakness
has a weakness
surprised to find
the crack in
the monotonous
heaviness that
cannot last
it always does
itself in
in the end
there’s an end
there always is.

The clouds come low
down the butte

the tree line
smeared blue

the rest given
up to sky.

It may snow,
but isn’t as cold

as it looks,
but maybe later on–

the lake dead
still, the dog

won’t eat,
nothing moves

in the sagebrush,
no birds, a lack

that makes
this quiet

so disquieting–
we all wait

for something,
it’s holding us up.

What happened
to the owl, here?

It used to perch on
the corner of the roof

above the back bedroom,
and one summer

there were three,
if not a parliament,

at least a party,
a triangulation of HOO,

Hoo, and hoo,
the farthest just

beyond the property line,
and then there was that one

that just went
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

the only animal sound
I’ve been able to duplicate

convincingly, and so
we went back and forth,

my mom doubled over
with laughter, the little dog

going crazy inside—
funny, but this retelling

worries me, as it’s mainly
a way of holding on,

and we don’t make stories
unless a thing is going,

gone.

[Sketch]

A conservative palette is in place, here–
the reeds, barn, hawk-on-the-wire,

trestle, even the train, the same
exact hue of rust.

These are colors of decay,
if limited in range, abundant

in texture, rough snow
in warming air,

an off-white horse
kneeling in a swampy

pasture. It’s hard to keep
a station in the foothills,

but imagine how they
run over the rocks,

waves of words
and songs getting lost,

a few civilized fibers,
a net in the wild,

drawn too loose,
hopelessly so,

the Skykomish
is slipping its banks

now, full and fast
with its dreams of ice.