Pebbles

the wind in pine tops
does sound like sea

so we stretch like sunbathers
on a broad fallen log

while trees reach cone-crowned into blue
day wave-washes over

sun and time tumble
our jagged parts smooth

Modern Landscapes of the West

We’ve been here before
just passing through, post-
well, everything

boarded windows, fallen walls
rubble, rust, dust
blowing dust

cows and cotton, concrete blocks
on concrete towers, brush-piled
tumbleweeds, pecan trees, dead

pecans, oil derricks and trains
for miles empty miles
and miles

Camping in North Texas

here we celebrate small
seasons, breath
between freeze and swelter
prickly pear paddles grown
green, fringed, wind
whipped up from the lake
verbena, butterfly-winged

contactless delivery

blame it on the sunny Saturday, so
caressed by daffodil yellow
hunting for lilac leaves, perhaps
in the dream of the moment all forgotten
it is not okay
to move toward someone, to stretch out your hand.

well, his look of reproach
as good as a wall
the box carefully set
on the sidewalk
between us.

(in the house, in the box a dress
sky-blue eyelet—
the mirror and I admired it)

complacency/today’s lover

we tiptoe now more than ever
the verges of all
comfort, this house we’ve built
probably delicate
at foundation though
truth be told
we haven’t looked in years

*

I surprised myself by thinking the beard was attractive but
perhaps it was merely youth or coloring or how he leaned over
a computer for doesn’t that speak brains? it could have been
silver hair, or glasses. bow-tie and glasses. shoulder’s curve, certain
combos of eyes/lips, forearm beyond rolled-up sleeve. dressing up
the urges to make them make sense. and then
with clear maturity of thought I told myself you can’t
have everything, not in one person, not in a hundred.
what then, this craving
to bring every ever-changing facet of beauty within?

Iron Rain

this far planet, origin
of superheroes who can
repel bullets perhaps
having been raised beneath
this hail
hell
wind-swept every lightless day
from the star side
and umbrella-less

NaPoWriMo Day Seven prompt to use a news article as inspiration.

response in reverse to Auden’s “A Walk After Dark”

we find our minds turned
to minor categorizing, as of birds
or stars, planets, plants—
though we still would count ourselves young
we discover how set in our ways
and full enough of age

overfull of death and decay
(the broken always with us)
as another crisis enwraps the world—
we want to feel and do more
with no guilt about it
or being called hypocrite by the young

or worse, a Victorian, having passed
beyond the ability to impress them
with our decent, ordered lives—
so I find at dinner nothing
but exhausted, plummeting defeat
more clouds in the forecast

Playing with today’s prompt from NaPoWriMo.net. I used only the first three stanzas of Auden’s poem.

on wanting to share “To Earthward”

a day of sudden hard light:
we’ve grown so tired
watercolor gray, so
with each visible sunbeam
we anticipate snow melting
on the verge, imagine the bee-
house warming and all green
pushing from the other side,
touch to touch, still seeking
wisdom’s communion
but tree-tough, immune
to frost, to blossom

You can read Frost’s “To Earthward” here.

building the rest of the world

ripples, or a Zen rock garden
the atom at the center

because we began
in the same star, light-

years ago, falling
(sometimes fall still)

but these rooms of reality
small (rocks, again)

catch us, safe
when we want to float free

Inspired by passages from Alan Lightman’s book Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine, pp. 53 and 55.

pneuma

what is the spirit? how you felt
exhilarated in the rain and wind
that one time, you were ten
and traveling, you knew
actual magic
*
you must bring it
the yoga teacher says
no one else can
find those places
of either hurt or release
*
in ancient Greek, I’m told
pneuma, verily only
the stuff of life
which blows
over all our heads
*
true dark skies last summer
Milky Way and eclipsed sun

beyond earth’s wind
beyond need for meaning