These minutes settle like pollen, or dust– imperceptible accrual. A bird sings the same song, over and over and over, you’d think fluency with immersion, but no, some things are inscrutable. Morning cedes with the ease of a breeze, enviably. Recondite self, what is this ache? Hope is only a stop-gap, always traded on arrival, here, now loosen your fingers, now show some grace–
Everything is bolting in the heat, sending up last gasps, small anxious leaves, scattered and flowering, even the greens in the shadiest bed giving in to reflex– panic, unbecoming, I sit in late morning’s near silence– a button strikes in the washing machine, the dog is gnashing her fur with her teeth, a jet passes low– tail, contrail, it’s motion that gives us all away– Unmoved, I eat a mealy peach.
(After Basho) Even on this perfect afternoon, I long for summer— a complicated thirst. An empty glass is a maw, a full glass, a vessel, and this view of half-moon sails clipping across cobalt water is so generously poured out, it’s no wonder I feel hollow.
The night is always more than the day the unseen weighing more heavily yet subtly the quick creasing of a bat’s wing a dull red speck that might be Saturn the implication of the doubly-stilled lake I wish I had stayed to swim in these expanses but now it’s late Monday, the maple leaves are wilting on the trees, stale sun, full heat, and I’m here if you want me–
Oh the things I won’t try to soften up this gorgon heart of mine– wine, up late with the boxes that came after the wake what remains is mostly Fujichrome, frozen smiles, some trinkets and baubles, a hat he always wore when fishing, with its cartoon shrimp dancing– I had to stop the exercise. Some materials are just not malleable, yes this could be a carapace to shed, a loss of protection in order to […]
They called again just after midnight up in the hills behind the house several coyotes come down close masked by the night protesting the absence of the moon and the loss of the four, five, six deer that trickled past here earlier, a river of hooves, still in the road like figurines before scaling up an abandoned lot, this landscape swallows those who wish it willingly, the vineyard sobbing like doves, the grasslands hissing like cicadas.
The plan to rise early turned into a slump returning to the covers as the last coyotes slouched off and not waking again till fat bars of heat fell across the room– full sun through the curtainless windows I’d left open for a breeze and to hear the coyotes ululate, and stentorian owls– now I’m entering a day that’s already been made proceeding impersonally no surprises in the sky, a uniform blue, no the song comes from below– a warbler […]
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 […]
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
OPTIONAL POETRY 