even in darkest woods

in the gloomy spaces
between tree trunks
flakes of light, hovering
here a slanting light shaft, broken
there a twig tip
triumphantly illuminated

to predict

carsick, wedged in among travel bags and crates
peering from underneath canvas flaps on the truck (illegal)
on the way to the harbor and the SS Seven Seas
but not unhappy to be leaving
next school year they were going to teach us English
and I was sure I wouldn’t be able to learn

musical city

bring your flute, piano, organ, orchestra
play the pigeon notes
crowding the staff
of electrical wires over Fruitvale Avenue
to the motors, flapping tires, to the sirens
add your pigeon music

framed

a photograph is barely a reminder
the sun does not touch your face
you and the river are not breathingthe 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

the way it works, dear

someone made him
get up and go to work
and now he rides
at the head of a long blast
the ladder of the tracks
up into the mountains
laid by others
who were made

political comment

yellow ribbons plastered on the backs of our cars
didn’t help

In a fog

the sun, wherever it can penetrate
lights up the inside of the fog

drive past a glory in a scrap of fog
the Douglas firs diagonally striped
in alternating fog and light

another scrap of fog, another glory

one glory after another!

gray hill shrouded in forgotten sun

in case we should forget

guest comes into the house, unasked
rattles walls and windows
as a reminder
just beneath the even streets
lives Kobe’s brother, Katrina’s sister

pre-dark

Have you ever noticed
The mid-air of evening
Somehow abrasive, pink like a rash

Blue-smoky air gathers
Over the mountains

Hills and long ridges bleach out
Become indistinct, gray
Settle themselves into silence

Earthquake

a shiver, a shudder
a rent in the air

one thing about earthquakes
they’re never there when you need them

fowl news

I know a chicken when I hear one
someone in the city has laid an egg
*
young roosters practicing their crowing,
gradually becoming proficient
the after-Easter silence

the way these sharpening hills shed rocks, shed paths, shed roads

I used to know
had you asked me I would have predicted
Goodwill, Meaning Well

now, if there are clouds, I like to drive a long way under them
I see rain in the distance and drive forward not knowing

and when children ask me, whatever I answer is true and not true

what I own

The things of this life move through us
We pick them up, carry them for a while

Inanimate, eternal things
The iron in blood for instance
Belonging temporarily to a temporary being

handicap

I guess they thought it would be too easy
On some they placed a greater weight
Spine in a curve, fist of anger, pierced heart

too intense, the yellow

plastic ruffle, formal frill
every year the daffodil

doesn’t he/she understand
here, in California
we’re more laid back?

(Her doctor was of the opinion
that she had brought her anxiety attacks
to the wrong state)

womanliness

http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/blogon/mtvideobox.php?video_id=78

weight loss

for 19 dollars, she dreams
she buys a chocolate heart for herself
then wonders who to give it to
she cannot eat it

losing weight from lack of cookies

the body relinquishes its stores slowly
holds on to its pounds as long as it can
(sie krallen sich fest)

I could flap these clothes and fly

an audible thought runs through the forest

no one need clap for the wind
a great performer

briefly noted

certain birds I love
certain cries I cannot get enough

summer morning bird
with a wheezy little whistle

the tulip has twisted round in its vase
for a view out the window

rows of tulips with wide-open teacups
over the fences, ropes of roses

ailanthus altissima

earliest spring, young tree of heaven
juvenile, gawky

flimsy
harvest of breakage

drooping, dripping cream confection
in a swarm of bees

if not for its easy-going ways
some towns would have no trees at all

Award!

I'm smiling today. Recognition this morning for my little poems in the form of an Award (!) from farmlady, who tends a colorful, creative blog (photos, poems, thoughtful writing) at Overgoodground.blogspot.com (definitely worth a long visit!). Thank you, farmlady. You made my day.

from the balcony

sinking down on us softly
the galactic light

someone estimated
2.6 million suns
and not enough to read by

a walk in town

springtime the landscape
reveals its colors

my cheery good morning
met with silence
once, and again

first white iris
with stuck-out tongues

red-hot tulips
with center black hearts

almost missing spring

in the other world (side-by-side suns)
the flowers, quietly in their places
they are blooming for each other
I am going to repair that break

gardening words

sprouting cotyledons
then little leaves

every now and then
one blooms
into a small poem
I would revisit

front yard poems and backyard poems
meeting each other on the steps

snapshot of a volcano

a great quiet
a waiting held closer to the light
an upheaval's monument
in the company of clouds

the geese

working to repairthe fence from winter damage
alerted by their cries, we look up

high over the house
and below the clouds
long shimmering skeins of birds
sweeping Northlike a great wing

travel day

why this great gathering
jubilant high circling
and abrupt departure
draining the area of vultures

where they are going
we can’t follow
meet and pass arriving clouds
soaring swiftly toward the north
along the bird highway

upon first reading the Denver Quarterly

the universe filtered
through the kaleidoscopic eyes of flies

a theoretical hog-calling contest
no one believing in hogs any more

this poetry could not be described as cozy

nothing adheres to these bones

they had warned me
poetry is not for everyone
I found myself hurrying, as past a graffitied wall

ah, poets, how can you write such things?
don't you fly at night in your dreams?

invective out of the way,
now let's reread and enjoy

after the storm

the interstate spreads its din
to the far walls of the canyon
but the river can't hear it
riding her high horse through town
foam flecks flying

brief

life as a gift of consciousness
in the wash of matter we’re intimately related to
belong to, the earth the rock, the stars

only marginally differentiated we walk
half in, half out of stones

the words he used did not translate

his other personality came out when he
used the other language

language

splashes in a pool from a skipped stone
concentric rings around distinctions
united in the water

assigning syllables
words in air or on paper that blows
ink sounds, air vowels, hoots and consonants
feather light, heavy in our ears

train notes

the light brightens
contours of the land take shape
the mountains laid out with their heights and tables
then day leaps in with its particulars
the rusty cans, the abandoned cars
no one is going to pick them up
they have become part of the landscape
and there! four pronghorn

laurel

moment of heightened consciousness--
sting of the unconscious mosquito

negative space

(Californians the brave and free to dump anywhere
any accessible place, bike trails, end of roads, beside the tracks
land of milk, honey, and dumped tires
mattresses, couch pillows, refrigerators, TV’s)

a passing house disgorged its contents in the woods
just a minor distraction
not even noticed by the enormous air

(we don’t have to clean up anything
nature will, when she gets around to it)

school lineup

through the chutes and gates
to a winning and a losing life

the same authorities that cut the grass
will remove the mounds of litter

paint over the graffiti
replace the broken fixtures
repair the mailboxes and signs

turning point

In my pointed hat and cape
I leap at the animals, the wolf
and the bear fall over backward
in stunned surprise
What fun! then someone
yells "Look out"

before the black painting

black is the direction the light is flowing
I'm standing in the wind of its arrows
the room revolves in its vortex, slowly

bridging

living in this snapshot of geologic time
we might ask, "how will it be with us
when the castle crags are worn down to stubs?"

and take our answer dancing
a thin bridge of words
stretched over eternity