Category: Poetry

 

Each morning in May

a small bird,

common, undistinguished,

black headed and grey

flies against the bedroom window

Again and again,

beginning his day.

 

Wings spread,

Resting on the sill a bit 

here and there

Earnest, peering through the glass,

as if wanting 

to find a way to pass

Into a place

yet unexplored.

 

It is strange, I think,

that he does this only

every morning 

at a certain time

while I lie in bed,

watching the light 

change on the hills,

clearing my head 

from sleep.

 

It seems as if he wants 

to enjoy another world

That appears unseparate

from the rest of 

what he knows

yet impenetrable.

Perhaps, I speculate, 

it is his morning practice

Before he starts

his work at eight.

 

In the evenings 

In the apple trees

he sings a two note song

cheerfully for hours

telling all who have ears

that these are his grounds

for the hunting of bugs

and the enjoyment of bees.

His trees for perching

and guarding his nest

HIs place in the space 

of the world

where he and his mate

feed new birds 

to move through air

who knows yet where.

 

And there was that moment

when the sun had not yet

filled every molecule

with its warmth

that I walked out 

to check the garden

and, glancing back at 

that window 

where this play

had just unfolded

through my window on the world

in all that changing light,

I saw instead a hole 

in the face of the wall

Filled with all those apple branches

I’d been seeing from my bed 

Unblossomed by late spring

Reflected now as if they grew

inside.

 

Just the way the bird, 

I knew just then,

sees a darkened space

with a male bird

just like him, 

flying through,

who must want, 

he’s sure 

to emerge from some other 

mysterious place

and take on all 

that he himself defends.

 

He flies at it. 

As if the peace of all

depends on driving it away

but the other 

just advances still

and retreats

until it, too, tires 

and sinks to rest

Down upon the sill.

 

There is no defeat. 

He does not decide

to fly away.

He must continue 

‘til a human sound

from another world

so loud

drives him from the fray.

 

Is it just a stupid bird

whose mind is just a rudiment

of ours

or do we all

lie dreaming on one side 

or another of that

mysterious space unknown

Finding impediment

to our flight 

just when we thought 

there would be none

As creatures of a planet

who all fly relentlessly 

against  illusions

until their time is spent?

 

Then throw the window open

And let the bird fly in

You’ll laugh out loud

To find those worlds 

help separate, secret

Undefined

With wildness

Are unbound.

 

Two mugs of milky tea

In the morning

Waiting for the inspiration 

of the minutely marvelous to take hold

I try to catch the dream

That had followed me

back into sleep this morning

before I reopened my eyes 

to watch the mist unfold over

that now so familiar meeting 

of two hills

Where trees, some dark,

some light with spring’s still

clinging emeralds

Flow down the curves 

of two of earth’s ample breasts

To meet  where the heart beats quietly

In the middle 

of that soft, dark-pined chest

 

The dream flows in mists

Of thought

That quickly drift in the breeze 

of morning’s sun

The feeling of it catches behind 

my eyes

Its fine thread elusive 

A skein unwinding much too fast 

to catch the end and

It is gone.

 

There is a brief time of sun now

Between the rains

That have become 

the norm of May 

In this, the beginning of 

mighty mountains.

There is a moment

Of strangely marvelous 

bright green peace 

while the neighborhood cat

prowls the lawn 

and pounces suddenly

hoping it has caught the mouse

that  in reality moved 

much too quickly to be trapped.

Paws outstretched, he waits 

a moment to be sure

and then moves on, undeterred 

by any shame

to find another small scratching

somewhere in the grass.

 

Yet soon the green begins to dim

As the tall bright clouds 

with inner souls of darkness

Rise up in majestic 

dreamlike languor, merging here and there

to diminish whatever space of blue 

remains.

 

One never knows, they say,

here in the mountains,

Whether the clouds 

will finally bring

the heavy streams of rain, 

or pass over, in their own time,

Outside of our time 

With only their sad greyness

that we retain

as some strange feeling

of unease 

Left as if by some fleeting 

and yet haunting 

dream.

 

 

 

 

Clouds will always make

a forbidding show

when they gather in their 

magnificent forms

of grayness

In all its shades 

save the darkness 

we know 

as night

 

But the light they hold

so delicately 

in their mistiness

can devastate even 

an iron heart

and the rain that may come

Oh the rain!

 

May it come first 

in  big drops

that fall on your face

and run down your cheeks 

Like the tears 

you cannot hold back

and be followed by the downpour

that washes through everything

and leaves nothing but

clean light 

and the soft molecules 

of brown earth.

 

May these then become

The luscious liquid 

of mud between your toes

that calls you back 

to that time

when the world was nothing

but fracturing rays from 

the brightest star you knew

And you never wanted 

to put on your rubber boots

But wanted instead

to be showered with 

all that liquid light

as you slid gayly along

In the after-rain morning

Oblivious of all else.

 

“Personnage”,  Picasso 1971

We are floundering 

on the shores of chaos.

All the normal pain of life 

that we have arranged

and turned to 

and away from

has lost its sense

in the face 

of the stunning loss 

of all 

our compass points.

 

The north of cold and blue truth

is shifting so wildly

No explorer 

can set off for its pole.

 

The south of warmth and compassion

is hiding deeply, 

scared silly of its shadow,

the craven violence.

 

East and west 

have traded places 

with such alacrity 

that the globe no longer knows 

which way to turn.

 

We cry out into the darkness.

craving some way to know

if the birth of some child 

Is coming,

With all this violence

this writhing, this dying.

And still 

the pain drives home

Again and again.

 

To make our way through 

we turn towards the sordid, 

the darkness

The underbelly of it all

watching in fascination as it

Illuminates black screens

Runs in letters across headlines. 

As if we cannot tear ourselves

away from the horror 

of the mess we are making.

And must peer strait into

its most filthy depths 

to become its familiar.

 

That perhaps by

smelling it, tasting it

Rubbing it in our eyes and ears

We may somehow

Incorporate it and 

transform it with the very

Magic of our terror 

 

Yet still, there’s another way 

through the filth

The darkness and 

the horror.

Like playing in the waves

of the ocean

We can dive under 

The crest of that

Great undulation

that could otherwise 

Smash this tender body

to a pulp

To find the stillness 

below the noise breaking

above us

And get lost in the vastness

of that beautiful

Liquid universe,

That light.

 

As the mother, 

birthing her child,

dives into the waves of pain

to meet the ocean

of all beings

that have ever 

arrived.

 

Part One

There is a rain
that falls through air
and lights it
with the glow of water.

It comes everywhere
at some time,
Even in the deserts
Where once
there were oceans
And in the oceans
where once
were green forests.

There is no time.
We know this now.
There is no separation of
molecules one
from another.
There is only some chance
that one of the smallest particles
is present now
In any given notch
in the myriad
of universes.

We know that when we look out
From a window
That it is not a window
outside us
Nor is the outside
not the inside.
We know this.

Feel it!
Practice the feel of it
With every breath you remember
Until the music of it
Vibrates everywhere
All at once.

Part Two

The eggman in the market
who observes his hens
Says they’re now running inside
And outside of their chicken house
With all the changing weather,

With the warm, then the cold
Then the wind, then the rain.

They do not like the rain
On their feathers.
The governments of the world,
he says, are changing
Like the chickens running
in and out
With all this variation
In the weather.

“Governments are driven by the weather
Like the hens”
he says,
In his accented French
of the Occitane.

Rain, I want to speak with you

as I watch you fall, 

now drops 

now clouds of  water 

streaming, teaming down.

 

I want to tell you what I know

And as all our cells 

can show.

Your liquid 

Is the essence 

of us all.

 

The sea is filled with you.

Each squall, each stormy night

Of silver falling, falling 

shards of light

Is there within each drop, each puddle

Each muddy hole 

on leafy forest floor

Each flooding river

Crushing all 

within its flowing flight.

 

I want to say to you 

that I have plunged

within your clearest depths

In seas that churn

And bays wherein

the deep of you 

Lies quiet and serene.

 

I have smelled your salt 

With strange desire

And sensed the bodies of your fish

As if my flesh were fins.

I watch you with contentment or

with that anxious anticipation 

of your accumulating threat

From inside rooms

Kept warm with some strange 

element of fire

 

I want to say to you

that your atoms 

know not good nor bad.

No thoughts of hatred nor of  joy

pass through any drop

Yet, your collective force  

Can purify or destroy

Engender peace or strife.

 

Each living cell

Contains the what of you

Not charged with any job

but to be the medium 

for the vibrancy of life.

 

Can you purify our lies?

Can you satisfy our cries 

of thirst for common decency

For knowledge of our ties?

 

I want to talk to you 

of this strange, stark 

state of  wonder 

that you are me 

and I am you

And somehow we are flowing 

Now down,  then under

Through all the streets 

and all the streams

And all your states of being

Back then  to the sea.