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 […]
How much harder to write the open days– calm at dawn the morning a breeze, all windows open to prepare for later heat. The details are kind: Young maples have filled the silence between the pines with undulating green, you’d never guess just how the bank drops off– Down in the valley children scream in play, two girls wailing like teakettles, like birds of prey, and on the porch, lines of silk spark in succession — […]
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 […]
Thinking of a river, thinking of a lake, of water, cool and far from here, and of passage, if not arrival, of what comes after endings, and also beginnings, what’s beyond, what’s more– Thinking of the forest floor, gestalt of cast off needles and moss, how gracefully it accepts a weight, gives way but doesn’t break, and with each year how it grows– in place.
To fill a void one must first acknowledge it exists– and failing that expansion must go outward unbindable highway 2 at dawn a woman possessed but even at these new falls bigger than the last falls even with their most conclusive roar and electric moss rocks and clean air I still think here here’s where that hiker fell in and went over yes nature giving but yes nature taking away even at the lake the […]
I know it’s a glacial lake hence the hue– unearthly erethral more green than blue I had seen photos imagined it for days and when I went it looked the same but of course different it’s a trick being too well-versed in imagination I sometimes think I know every thing but then the tell like some alpine salamander swimming out past the wreck of some half -submerged log casting tiny ripples minuscule shadows but what […]
Loathe to return from the sun-lit ledge the valley below still shadowed by peaks and cutting across it a dream of a lake voiceless for a while we didn’t even speak just felt the warmth of sun the chill of wind attuned and not attenuated Emily’s right the soul has its moments bandaged escaped retaken– all the way down it felt like shackles the hours closing in again appallingly close so terribly still
Herald to a gaudy spring the potted Narcissus outside the door sprouts from a pool of standing water strange how a myth persists but nothing truly self-absorbed would share so freely unattributably and intangibly its scent so maybe that’s the Hyacinth these flowery Greeks easy to confuse all springing up from the blood of gods and lovers
OPTIONAL POETRY 