Benediction

[ Nominated by the Tangled Locks Journal for the 2023 Pushcart award ]

In spite of the appearance
that you think too little of yourself,
which is the flip side of thinking too much
of yourself,
which you do,
because the obverse side
of the merry-go-round you are living
is drilling deeply down
to find that north deepens into
south and east flirts with time to end up west,
and all that
still leaves north your chilling cradle,
even with all this carnival music,
the truth is that-
your life is a benediction
to me.

~~~

The Ripening

When early from the infinite, I
chose the twig that touched the sky

Hearkened to a sound first heard
from topmost leaf, susurrant word,

It was the sky-tolled call of home,
and recognition rustled down the bone.

Then my body in a seeding race
became Earth’s transient spawning place,

Life called out, hoarse from earth,
the rounded body insisted birth,

As suckling newborns, wet and red,
force surrender to this self-made bed.

Here below are voiceless gardens,
seedlings faint for thirst,

I rise to bring the water,
stoop to raise the earth.

Granted a god inchoate to hold,
mute till touch is voice,

I learn the need to feed at root,
oblique to choice.

~~~

Us

It was clearly a last ditch effort to keep young
we met the month we turned 60
only to marvel at our lust

We kept it close, reveled and rolled
and jubilance was our sleep’s descent
say, look at us, we kept thinking
see how great we are, we kept agreeing

And fell asleep with victory
and shared spit on our lips,
let us show them how, we smiled
let us make the angels recoil

The bed was wide and the afternoons
free
we rose better fed than possible

And time slipped along the eaves
gold afternoons rutilant through the blinds

As the world passed
we heard it in the street and

When the old beggar knocked we
thought to keep him out
but he
was us
~~~

Dorodango

We used to call our brothers dirtballs
because we were deeply poetic
and we lived on a giant dirtball
We and all humans have a thing for sphericity
because of this collectively unconscious
connection with earth spirit, probably.
For example, in Japan, that place
that was clearly visited by aliens long ago
they sit quietly on the ground
(Ground sitting is also an art) so they
can dig into mud and form it into a ball
which soothes them to the point
Where they feel they must continue
with art and life, so they polish one,
the ball, to a deep, smooth, light-reflective shine.
~~~

Orthogonal to Cohesion

The striped woman lies
under ladders of light
that climb the walls,
dark and pale her heritage.
A litany of tragedy in and out of mind,
the thrum of blood,
toneless, unrelenting,
widow, widow, widow,
terrible bird.
Black-edged days,
night-stained spoor,
death, has left her lame,
one side short,
one long.
Stumble and creep,
as if prostration
were recompense,
as if gravity would save her.
She claws the sheets,
on a bed slanted away from her, precarious, downward,
dumping everything.
~~~

In Certain Ways

In certain curtained
ways,
I do
require my love,
homage of you.
That your lips
my earth should kiss
Gothic portal to bliss,
Tunnel-like, loving is,
as roots
perform the tree.
Roots and rooting thus
comes towering the trunk,
columnar.
High spangled leaves
thrust to sky,
this is how
and this is why,
Fruit falls inward, by and by.
~~~

She Spoke… This

It seems that wanting to
be remembered
is barking up
the wrong tree.
Hoping to remember,
the priceless key
for that
immortality,
Which perches,
red bird on the branch,
winged
with easy startling.
Not next door, but down the street,
take your singularity
where the sidewalk stops
and trees grow thick,
Slip between the trunks,
mount the low bowed limb,
and braid
a chain of meadow flowers,
While no one one
sees you crowned,
dancing in the knee high grass.
Dark to itself, the void.
All you were given was
a template of love, passed down.
Abide.
It will be found.
~~~

Back To Sunday

She walked into the room
flushed, illuminated
like first light of October
in the mountains.
If Jenny comes home for Christmas,
only the gleaming mornings of October,
sunset colored pumpkins in the field,
and corn stalks drying crisp light brown.
Only mountains rolling burnished
yellow and green
with flashes of peach,
and rust and glory.
Only the hackberry tree
covered and undulating away
in each of four directions
a trillion trillium-leafed world.
If Jenny comes home for Christmas
upward gold will leave gilt
our ground. To see her
we will not need to travel far.
Her face crinkled in a smile and I
slid down the slope of her
into a sunny place
with harvest blooms
A hummingbird glint of emerald
and blur,
Sunday dinner smells
through pale yellow,
Dust motes hang in space,
fullness, everlastingness,
in days abundant in
memory forever.
She was there, and life was.
~~~