On the road--will return to blog again (no doubt)

more words about the Calatrava bridge in Redding

There is no reason to cross the river but for the bridge

I want to emphasize
how much the bridge cares about you, personally
The bridge has eyes for no one but you

Even now I am yearning for the bridge

(“the capacity of things to be close to us”)

mother comes in a package, small, neat & odorless

she is still in charge of perfection
I can’t even see that well

gardening at this age

plants, at least, stay where you put them
the only thing I can still dominate

words are impossible, slippery, mistaken
reverse themselves to their opposite meaning

(presented playfully, they
become ominous, take on a sinister tone)

I never have to apologize for my peas

hikers by in a group
of coughs, laughs, tramp of boots

mark the trail on the other side of the lake
colors passing between gray rocks

(I am waiting on the bench
for a royal purple jacket, a dog, sunset red
and the leap of heart)

sunbrowned and hatted

even when everyone comes here
it’s still you alone in the wilderness
carrying your weight in sun and wind burn
up against gravity, down over rock and root
you against thirst, hunger, weariness
the interminable daily needs and toiletries

turning in for the night
after driving all day
the motel is just a giant stationary camper
which periodically gives a silent lurch

sit on the bench by the open door
cool wind playing in the leaves
cracked lips, sunburned face

same crackling fires overhead
stars, none missing

same sickle, upright over the trees

you know the mountains
I don’t have to tell you

no cell phone reception,
even from the highest overlook
parades of granite crowns

stacks of weathered granite, pitted, cracked
inclines of scuffed white granite
lichen blackened granite
sparkle of broken granite

pine needles crunchy underfoot
and now the wind, like a waterfall
in the ponderosa pine with the plated orange trunk
then, all the ponderosa pines

along the asphalt trail,
memorial plaques mounted on a rusting pipe
here the emigrants passed by
here the Indians had to be destroyed
silence of the white dam holding back the sky

progress report on the fires

today the fog
is gray, hurray

dreaming past the alarm

a sea of glass statues
where the getting out of bed should be
she stops to examine them--
late to work again

it's a gravel road

on the way to the lake
within sight of the cold blue water
bushes pale under the load of dust
tree roots grasp the waning embankments

windy today

the wind arriving from far
on the way to a destination that
varies from moment to moment
wants nothing from us
I have opened the doors and windows
for it to blow through the house

visit to Georgetown

when the light lets go
of the high places
the clouds turn golden faces to the sun
under the low bridge
the river rushes away from me
but I'm in no hurry at all
and stay till the world fades to grey
I walk back in the black
with a turquoise sky to guide me
in puddles by the road

breakfast at McDonalds

everyone just pretends
the food is real
finish your fries, dear
or it's no mcmuffin for you

up

against gravity
the fight is up
a grove of douglas firs, up
birds up, jubilantly
up, the mountains launch your eyes

near Dunsmuir

soft hills lounging
against starched peaks
forests stuffed with trees
faint birds live here, and bears in fur
and glimmering fish in choppy lakes
and the lonely osprey in is nest
atop the tallest tree

sugar pine

there are no greater honors
than to stand on the rim of the day
arms stretched out to the air
hands dripping cones

riveries

-framed
a photograph is barely a reminder
the sun does not touch your face
you and the river are not breathing
the same air
and you’ll never know
what the photographer left out

whether she stepped in from silence
and miles of valley or the sound
of a leaf blower from the million dollar
house up on the hill

wood smoke, incense of a cedar?
or smell of sewage, rotten apples
fishermen stabbing the river with their poles

*

(flows from a topknot
a cloud, the connecting ice, a dam
flows from a pipeline, broken egg, a womb)

not just another one of your clean, unencumbered designs
but upwellings, backwashes, crinkles, folds
intricacies and lusters
saltation and exultation

all shine and dread at times, shifting greens
today the Sacramento is open, carefree, with a sound
of children scuffing through the autumn leaves

*

--just a way for the water to get down
forest-green, mint and white
the river, patterned runner

a coming together
waters poured into waters

intertwining flows
it’s a braided river-rope

a roar in place,
freight train shrieking by out of tune

American dipper beneath the railroad bridges
chubby, blinking a white eye

*

--cottonwoods by the river
always a hint of darkness to the leaves
as if keeping tragedy in view
through sunlight and eclipse
nothing carried to excess or ecstasy
a periodic cotton elation

*

listen carefully, he said
a rhythm has to beat somewhere in the music
but the water

overflows the pool and falls
divided, overflows the stone
clearly in small arcs
falls white in foam

one continuous exhalation

*

--hearing things
Though alone, I hear
my husband’s voice
say my name by the waterfall
and look to where my son is safe
down among the cliffs and rocks

“between insane and wise
there is no double yellow line?”

*

--Mossbrae
where white curtains empty themselves
on the rocks in a white splash shadow

a dipper’s hunched on white legs
whistle tuned
for strident battle with the water

*

--autumn
cream with pink edges
the failing porcelain
of a rose

opulent dahlias
staked in strict rows

wood smoke
rotting apples and
incense from a cedar

heavy as iron, the river
sliding its hardware beneath the bridge
dark conveyor belt, ferrying
the cottonwoods’ leaves
big, yellow, generous hearts

*

--spring transport
to the McCloud river, early
sinking over the boot tops into snow--

dark Cadillac of the water, opulent
black rose over the falls

*

--Landmark
always the smell of sewage by the river
the Sacramento flows over its stones
like a yellow bottle

the alder
trailing a hand in the water

sitting in its shade
feel the tributaries of air

seen through the foliage
an entering creek--
falling water, relentlessly down

the cliff--
stone down to the road

an apple, red-cheeked on one side
bobs and whirls, leisurely at first
sudden acceleration through
the eddies, a fast ride away

*

the Sacramento in dips and standing waves
following a watercourse

the river constantly leaves itself behind at the banks
gets lost in the white stones

*

--High flows
Gray-green, business efficient
Trucking the rainstorm back to sea


--Higher
Around the curves they bend as one
Tossing white horns--the waves

*

inexperienced in rivers
and noticing the white streamers
I used to think the water was flowing in the other
direction

charging up, I suppose,
the staircase of rolled river stones
up through Dunsmuir alongside the track
past the loop, hissing up
between the bookcases
of the green-gray cliffs
through the turbine
back behind the dam
Lake Siskiyou overflowing
into the mountains

*

all the preparation: nurturing, upbringing, schooling
and then I didn’t become anything

painstaking placement
on a journey without destination

(study for the other world?)
(long preparation for fading away?)

burned to a white ash, my hair
my skin sizzles when you touch it (and then so cold)
my life, lately, has been a returning

back to first things
which are also last things—

sunlight on the steps
(stabs of joy in the belly)

backwards river

It’s been a long preparation for the return