Remembering Roca
My cat, having snuggled long enough,
went into the far woods to where
the adventures might be rough.
She didn’t return. After two days calling
along the roads, the forest paths,
I finally asked Stella, the blue-eyed husky,
for help. As we moved into the woods, she nosed
bushes, tore at rotting logs, the scents pulling her
to lose me––but she came back. She brought us
to a dead fawn, whose body had settled into
the earth, twigs and debris greasy
with her now bled and dissipating flesh.
The slumped form trailed one slim leg.
In the shadows it looked like a cat’s long tail.
Wingbone
I ask no heaven but this raven's world.
--Richard Nelson
I want to open everything
and pour myself
into the world, but am unable.
So I drip what I've become
through the wingbone of a loon.
Only then do I hear the calling
that mends my heart, that forgives
my distance.
Ogre
She is the scintillant ogre of the biomass,
and there are those whose nostrils widen to danger
when the breeze lifts. But with her a turtle
might find shelter, and perhaps a mouthful
of tasty gnats. When near, even a man
would fill with her loamy musk, would learn her
as she's learned the marshes
and the river.
Pocket Animal
I want to be there to wail
when your feral eyes
blaze. I'd be your pocket animal,
your packet of scat. I'd be fur for your sleep,
huddled close and trembling when wild
with dreams your claws might thrash.
And when it came time to move, I'd take
your scent away on my hooves.
Plum
She bared her plum
blossom bottom
to pee in a brilliant
Mardi Gras
of poison oak, and like
an angel on
the Lord's business,
was unscathed.
Impediment
What if God had a speech
impediment
and each time
she spoke
a universe with strange
new laws
would spring into
existence?
Grammar
There are passages where
this universe,
like an ungrammatical
construction, fails
the rules
yet shapes a quirky
beauty, preparing
a new template for life.
Second Coming
Finally your mind goes away,
and in that long instant, that clear
longing, you hear a universe
of musical voices calling to you: come be
with us, please come to us, we've waited.
You know then the sound of your own cells,
and you go to them, forever, so they
will never die.
Trimuph
A mind just roared by
on a motorcycle,
leaving a flash
in my retina.
I have noticed
the way the setting sun
will select a single window
in the foothills, and
from a distance of miles
that shining seems greater
than all else. At evening
the Great Blue Herons fly inland
to roost, one after another over
an hour, each making its individual
compromises with the air.
Yet together, their steady
succession is a triumph:
the certainty of light
finding form in
the living.
Smiling Down
For awhile life was better—
the smallest details
were reason for pleasure, her car
starting, a face smiling down
from the billboard advertising
a local savings and loan.
But the old anxiety returned
to its home in her, and its
heavy webbing spread
to snare everything, the way rain
and a good wind will take
any flower's petals down.
She needed a memory,
and returned to the ocean where
his hands were still up under
her new sweater, his hands
which were not cold, her heart
no longer chilled or pumping the blues.
Excuses for Paris
You adore the lazy men of Paris, yes
but remember Hemingway heroes cheated on
their taxes.
You cover my cheeks with handmade excuses
when tradition forbids you to smile.
Remember even Hemingway cheated on love
while eating over-ripe fruit by candlelight.
When tradition forbids you to smile,
you cover my chest with ripe kisses.
You call it, "Eating fruit by candlelight."
I am adored and lazy in Paris.
Noah's Carrots
When my forty-something neighbor,
the dwarf, asked me to address
the question of carrot anomalies,
I was momentarily stunned, then
recovered my usual garden poise
by stating: "The issue must involve
the spider winch," and winked.
" Two times four equals fate," he replied.
Not being a Biblical scholar, I wondered
if Noah saved the viruses and noxious weeds.
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