One AM and the night
and the fog and the motel
marquees render the sky
in a liver color.
I would have said purple
but someone’s fighting ugly
in a parking lot nearby,
with a puce sort
of sentimentality.
Sound carries here,
the ocean beyond
the trees coming to rest
beneath the balcony.
No, it’s restless too.
In enough sea haze
we’re all an island
unto ourselves,
the neighbor’s
porchlight barely
dents this brume.
This wine is frankly
a little rough,
or probably it’s me,
come to the coast
with work and not
abandon.
It’s still above 60
but I find myself
quite alone, out here,
wiping moisture from
my screen.
No bells are tolling,
thankfully, just
the thunderous
surf and the runny sky,
drenching the sign
of a Best Western
at least a mile down
the beach until it passes
for a moonrise.
August 21
Sadness is thick
but more precisely
it is dense.
I do sense danger
in the sea’s laughter,
but also fairness.
Why do I return
to the indifference
of the ocean?
It gives as much as it gets,
doesn’t boast of its
limitlessness.
You wrote a book
of questions, but what
of the ones you didn’t ask?
I have a few I can’t
even bring myself to speak,
instead writing some lines
like you, like this–
Is a sinking feeling
more acceptable in sand?
August 20
I.
Robed
in soft blush
the peaches
for the wedding
are ripe
and I will
take them
when I leave
for the seaside
perfumed
with tender flesh
and a heart
of stone.
II.
Often painted
with a stem
and leaf
the tongue
by which
we speak
our hearts
these fruits
shared the sun
equally so
must not be
kindred
a tree
produces
unevenly
at best.
III.
With
clingstones
some cultivars
are made
to be difficult
and it’s no
secret that
work
can be
pleasure
but pleasure
cannot be
worked at.
IV.
Perseverance
in time
the skin
peels clean
with just
a thumb
the stone
falls free
the only
labor here
is patience
the fruits
multiple
a peach
perfected
unequivocally
consummate
a new seed
now bared
the promise
inherent.
August 19
The fires flowed together here:
blown down dry canyons, antithesis of water
but moving not unlike it—
the confluence in conflagration.
With devastation
sometimes it’s hard to find
the right word, to capture
capricious natures,
fire casting a permanent shadow
with such arbitrary borders—
remaining pines, firs, and hemlock
all shocked prematurely orange—
guilt of the survivor.
Consumed by the Chiwaukum
this land can speak
for itself,
litter and understory erased,
branches incinerated to generate space,
trunks turned ink-black,
the blank slate hillside stands still
and staid and states:
I I I I (was a tree.)
For miles, this repeats.
August 18.1
No breeze.
Stark heat.
The ground still drying,
leaching a mineral scent.
It’s amazing how much noise
one quail can make
and there are at least thirty
in the elderberry tree.
Ninety-three in the shade—
I said I’d get some work done
but the watermelon I cut
is already warm.
Not even the wasps
can muster up interest—
slow in flight, dragging
their legs behind them.
August 18
We had a gully washer.
Dried silt spilt out,
Rorschach
on the driveway.
It’s the way things go
I try to tell the finch
who is giving me
side-eye.
Why we lay
foundations
and not eggs
is beyond her–
I make a play
on
laying an egg
but it’s over
her head
and then
she’s over mine,
my concerns
about structural
integrity being far
beneath her.
That said,
I’ve seen a lot
more rabbits
out in the open
darting for higher
ground
as best
they can,
cute pom
pom tail
masking
the fact
that
they are just
anxiety with fur
(and somewhat closer
to us taxonomically.)
August 17
On 97 ALT eastbound just out of Entiat
a lone tumbleweed sat,
backlit, nearly transparent,
a forgotten thought.
It’s fire season all the signs say,
here it’s burned down to the road,
scorched rocks and harlequin trees,
half escaped, half engulfed.
Every night now I’m dreaming
and every dream now I’m explaining
or trying and trying and waking
with relief.
Name the cry.
What does this need
need? Distance? Space? Heat?
A water-skier shapes a snake
on the hyaline Columbia.
Cautiously, I pass a convoy
of brush breakers.
Somewhere, fire activity
in this elemental place.
And acres of orchards.
Harvest came early,
at the base of each
are Schrodinger’s crates.
I almost pull over
to take a peek, to set
one story straight, at least.
August 16
Note the groupings: Forest.
Downpour. Chorus.
The bird have changed
their voicings,
the cooler morning
has its music, too—
percussive drizzling
on a full canopy
of leaves, no melody
soaring over
the green equanimity.
A mist floats in,
suspended
across the upright
bars of trunks,
the evergreen chords.
Remember when
the tree fell?
a few sharp
cracks
and then the loud
softness
of it coming
to rest.
A pollen spore
descends
from its frond,
a fractal lichen
forks again,
but lento—
slow down
or you’ll miss it.
August 15
Some parted the water cleanly
from the greatest height,
some from lower, some
less cleanly,
bodies reaching terminal
velocity, in three seconds halfway,
in eight seconds, entry
into the deepest pool,
gulped up by sapphire,
time moving a bit less
predictably, (or perceptions
flowing relative to impact,)
seen in phase changes
at the airport drop-off,
this area is for loading
and unloading only. Solid. Gas.
Liquid. (Solid?)
is how it goes in theory,
but with a final embrace the breath
can turn
to late night surfacing
from dreams, it’s risky–
with enough distance,
the water approaches soft
as a bedrock, the meter’s
running then suddenly it’s ticketing,
the T.S.A–
Pour it out. Pour it out they say,
a breathless 1,710 miles of momentum
remains between
that last blissful day of swimming
in the shadow of the high-rise,
before
the unkind angle, the empty
room, the actual impact
of this
belly-up
good-bye.
August 14
It’s Guynes Street, still.
The house has the same
flat bricks as my
grandparent’s place,
painted filigree iron
to hold up the carport,
honeysuckle bushes,
and no front door.
Inside, they’ve kept
the old decor:
spinet piano, doilies
on the couch, china
in the sideboard.
It’s all too fragile,
knowing what I know:
the curtains too sheer,
the panes too thin.
On that morning they hit
the floor, having practiced before—
If there is one rule
in poetry it should be:
Write your own pain.
This isn’t my home,
I am a temporary resident
and my family ties are
blessedly recent
but things are soaked
in history here,
you can’t take a step
without stepping in it,
even things as innocuous
as the crooked crook of an oak,
manicured lawns and driveways
that cut through,
Murder.
Hung juries, strange fruit—
And what can I say?
Time’s healing properties
are overrated, at least
in this state,
things come thirty
years too late,
if ever, and
there are some ugly,
ugly trees here, and
it’s not the only place.
OPTIONAL POETRY 