still-posed on fence poles
ground squirrels in the bright sun
below…ahhh…a skunk!
Lifted from the tide pool,
Malachite
Lies wet and cool
In my hand
While primordial memory
Flickers in my blood
Or quivers across my skin
As I touch Malachite’s cousin,
Serpentine,
Warm and slick in the sun.
Wet tadpole ripples
Ride the heart rhythm
Pulsing in waves.
Lizard sand trails
Scrape scales against flesh.
Sediment silts into the riverbeds
Of my veins.
Cooling magma steams
In my bones.
I am rock and life.
I am alone on the beach
Where ancient memory
Assaults reality
And transforms dreams.
Easter is a time to express
Love in all our communications,
To speak with long time friends,
Renew love ties with old loves,
Touch the heavens in thanks,
Remember why we are here.
Easter, peaceful bliss,
Omen of what we all owe,
Divine help when needed most.
May I thank you for your love?
One more reason to be glad.
Happy Easter to you all.
So prim and grim,
Everyone of them,
So very thin.
Dark seams
Of black or brown,
The Six O’Clocks
Lived on our street.
The Six O’Clocks,
Passed by our house
Each day, tall
Rigidly erect
Bringing instant gloom
Like a windblown cloud
Which briefly blocks the sun
Dimming the day
Chilling the soul.
Who could know
Or ever understand
Their solemnness?
They never smiled,
Never nodded to say hello
Never spoke to anyone
They met along the way.
The Six O’Clocks
An enigma
Of silent shadows
Staining our memories
With a question
Without answer.
There was snow upon the ground,
snow held frozen in the clouds.
Ice was in the air
that prowled beside the prison walls.
The line was long that day.
It was often long
and many of the faces there
had come every day hoping for news or sight
of a beloved one who had disappeared
behind the terrible prison gates.
The winter without
the winter within
stole the words of day,
held silent the vigil
kept beside the prison walls.
Anna was there that day
not as invited guest, honored poet,
only as petitioner
another mother come seeking her son.
As Anna came to stand at the end of the line,
the woman before her turned to look at her
with eyes deep set with pain.
Recognizing the poet, the woman asked,
“Do you have the words for this?”
Anna replied, “I have.”
The woman bowed her head.
Thus consoled, she faced forward once again
to wait the silence out
until Anna, with a poet’s voice
could give her the words
to free the darkness from her soul.
The wild steppe wind
Thrashes the air
Plummets across the grasses
Where the khans rode
With their thirsted horde
Where the rains of Naga
Wandered displaced
And lonely
Where sings the grass
Of wars and Spring
And the earth aches of history.
The words are not mine
Yet they fill my mouth
With their life,
Carving canyons
Into the sensitive tissues
Strangling my tongue
Spilling acid down my throat
If I were to tell you all
That happens
When their sound
Steals up the secret passage
Of the inner ear
Onto the landscape of my unguarded mind
You would weep
How many are we?
We, who have known
atoms seething
within our flesh
erupting in pain:
the violent flaming
of a world being born
Who have felt the sun winds
stir our childhood cradle
as a universe breathed to life
Or, still before—
before there was that All
our numbers have given us,
before that all our minds can understand?
How many are we
who remember before
there was light?
Bobbling on currents unseen
Bubbling up toward the waiting hand
Sounds swirl and spill
Into a mind which catches
Then bats them away
Allowing only a select few
To splash across the gridded game board
Up, around, and down, across
Words cascade, collide
Bounce, ricochet, bloody the field
Leaving at last a singular pattern
Sitting in the dark
Waiting for the quiet
Watching the stars
come out
one by one
Waiting…
Waiting for the quiet
Afraid to go in
to the noise
to the little love-demands
Afraid of one more asking
Afraid
Waiting…
Waiting for the quiet
to come
to still the fear
the unreasoned panic
Waiting…