We walk in our own world. Fog opens before us, fog closes behind usand sometimes we see shadowy figures,sometimes the animist glow of a truck’s headlightsas it spins an empty circle on hard-packed sand. We all leave our mark here, relative to weight, this ground is laced with pulverized shells and rock crab slaughter, but the tide is going out now, now innocuous. A solo seagull tucks into itself to sleep, mistaking poor visibility […]
Early morning tableau— wan sunlight and ecstasy of dog. A thought arises— there might have been a warmer reception back into the world of the living if anyone had just brought Cerberus his bowl.
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 […]
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 […]
I. Robed in soft blush the peaches for the wedding are ripe and I will take them when I leave for the seaside perfumedwith tender fleshand a heartof stone. II. Often paintedwith a stemand leaf the tongue by whichwe speak our heartsthese fruitsshared the sunequally somust not bekindreda tree producesunevenlyat best. III. Withclingstonessome cultivarsare made to be difficult and it’s no secret thatwork can be pleasurebut pleasurecannot be worked at. IV. Perseverancein time the skin […]
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.
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 […]
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 dreamingand 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 snakeon the hyaline Columbia.Cautiously, I pass […]
Note the groupings: Forest.Downpour. Chorus. The bird have changed their voicings, the cooler morninghas its music, too— percussive drizzling on a full canopy of leaves, no melodysoaring over the green equanimity.A mist floats in, suspendedacross the upright bars of trunks,the evergreen chords. Remember whenthe tree fell? a few sharp cracks and then the loudsoftness of it comingto rest. A pollen sporedescends from its frond,a fractal lichen forks again,but lento— slow downor you’ll miss it.
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 […]
OPTIONAL POETRY 