Landscape Chorus
Out West, I, the traveler,
chant namings of geologic formations,
try to remember, for there
they are bold-faced, immodest,
stand undressed in upthrust,
cliff, chimney rock and arch.
The names are whispered
over and over to remember
in a dry repetition,
desert-breathed and history-laden.
Chinle chimes and Entrada sings
a sunlit heart. High up Morrison
has both a Bushy Basin
and a Salt Wash member.
The Waterpocket Fold is worth
exploring, and slot canyons
paint Georgia O’Keeffe displays
with light slipping down from above.
These consonants and vowels
linger on my lips. There is no way
to explain such time lapses
to myself, so I am simply left
to lay my voice down
among their naming songs.
When Dying Was an Option
One of those countless jotted notes
One star among my galaxies of papers
Words from somewhere
Copied from someone or a fleet thought
An epigraph or an idea
A quote or a sudden panic
An opening theme as the symphony begins
One I will hum
All the way home from the concert hall
The same night sky passes forever
But that scrap of paper has disappeared now
Into the recycle bin
Bothering Each Other
The mockingbird is vying with the squirrel this morning
in the Most Irritating Noise-Maker Contest.
I do not think he’ll win a mate with this repertoire,
though he has inserted a few lovely motifs.
The deep purple clematis meanwhile has created
shadings of almost complete light absorption
while the less velvety petunias of a paler shade
add only quiet dignity to pond-pump burblings.
Some other shrill birds gather at the cat dish,
but the cats don’t care. My neighbor, though,
comes out in deepest night to throw
his slippers at the lovesick sleep-stealer.
The peaches are quietly ripening on their tree.
So are the figs on their glossy-leafed mother.
I think they are silent, but perhaps they, too,
are disturbing some corner of nature’s workings.
Even so, I find this turmoil of procreation
to be a daily gift, and my nightly drift
into oblivion and needed rest, lucky for me,
takes place on the other side of the house
from the persistent bachelor’s favorite perch.
Outside my window the tomatoes and cucumbers
may be causing a ruckus, but I sleep on, blessed.
The Weight of Things
She loved her father first
He the only man
In her nine months’ life
And she feared women
Two social workers came
And took her away forever
From her foster mother, sister,
Brought her downstate to us.
She arrived soaking from too long
In the same diaper and afraid.
We later carried her
Through department stores
Past unrecognized women
Who did not reach out for her
Nor take her away.
She soon trusted me
Until that Sunday morning
I entered her room wearing
A church hat. It turned me
Into a stranger…a threat.
All this soon passed
And what scars there were
Neither she nor I
Know. All I think is recorded,
Much beyond our reach,
And does each drift of leaf
Stir the universe? Perhaps we
Only hope cherished memories
Matter and all else falls away?
Or do we fall away…..away?
My daughter-in-law requested
A metal safe for the baby’s photos
And it, over the years,
Weight of Things – 2 (stanza break)
Was surely insufficient.
So I here record my daughter’s fear,
And these words, too, flicker, fall
In and out of all safekeeping.