When the weather watchers start to confer,
Be wary,
…..Be wary of day jobs, partners,
And farm animals needing attention.
The caddis only happen once
And this might be your best
Or last:
Should you be the fatalistic type.
Author: SamF
Fractal Gardening
Obviously the pattern plays out a bit
Random at first glance.
Time worked into the edges,
And the small becomes large,
And the oldest wood grain
Of a leaning fence post stands tall.
.
A hundred little emergencies scatter out front
Swirling amongst the thousand arms of possibilities.
The intricacies of pattern,
The frustrations of patches.
Three poems from bystanders on a late afternoon
Set the horizon just above the bones
There.
Lying deep in chill
Layered in soiled mantles,
The spring grass waits
In the churn of hope
And the customs that years tend to build.
Like promises from old friends:
Taken easily,
without haste,
And carried through the field.
.
Mind this vista well.
Explore the escapes of hills
And secret creeks,
Long walks during the bright times,
Wanderings during foggy mornings,
And the staggering stupors
Of the dying weeks.
.
Lean back,
Eyes closed,
Stars above,
Feet below.
Breathe the air,
Sparkling now,
Shimmering,
In evening’s soft glow.
.
Putting up a Christmas Tree
-OR-
Holidays of the Central Valley Suburbs
December fog,
Wearing, days on days,
Just holding.
.
These houses, now become exhibits,
Were never really new.
Always:
The years of potholed driveways,
Cracked pavement, a toppled fence,
And the bald tires on a car kept running
By visiting strangers,
From some other house unseen,
But always showing up
Just around meal time,
When a visiting uncle,
Now living out there,
Just happened to stop by.
.
The old garage in the backyard,
Everyone’s secret,
That decisionless haunt
Of misshapen mornings strewn about
Turning, in some methodical, timed way
To frustrated, wrenching afternoons,
And, finally, the long soft evenings,
If the drugs don’t turn weak
Or disappear.
.
All at once,
Spooled backwards, knotted, hungry
And free.
.
Kids would throw walnuts at passing cars.
And regret the open window
Yet appreciating the relief
Of an angry knock:
A chance at never again.
.
They wanted to pin us to the growth trajectory,
Instead of the stagnant complacency
Where we could just languish,
In the short, dark days.
Made easier,
In the the dim, grey lights,
Between holidays always celebrated,
Always.
Sketching the Klamath in November
The River is now a great bridge:
The one constant stretching morning
Across the entire day
All the while folding it,
Neatly
Gently,
Back into night.
.
In between:
Freshly poured green water,
Water of life,
Calling water.
Water that hides things
And
rarely reveals them.
.
Even the rocks revel in their newfound tones
Shining on their neighbors with the latest
Deepest
Hue of translucent
stained
Distant
blue.
.
Born of morning,
All the shadowed eddys,
Boxes,
And dark watching spots,
curiously,
Slowly,
Lengthen day’s best work,
In their icy stillness.
.
Dinner is jars of old elderberries,
And struggling greens, lost
Between the miseries of heat
And bugs and thirst
nearly quenched,
While seeing the path ahead,
Pitted, dense,
Still tough..
To where winter will set stride.
.
Cravings of sweets
in the soft, cloying dampness.
Chilled, but
cleansing.
All this:
From vistas of feet
on velvet landscapes,
To the endless jostlings,
Riding across this great bridge.
Sketch from the Orchard
As leaves loose summer’s grasp
They become ghostly ballerinas of the still air,
Glistening,
On the annual pilgrimage to winter’s soft cradle.
.
Morning here lingers well into the afternoon
And shadows replace light
As the preferred method of telling time.
.
Soon, the first winds will stir,
And the old days will be back,
If just for a moment.
Day Three at the Astronomy Office
The dense moments:
A perched and waiting infinity
like the slow approach
Of a December storm.
This will give way
To clusters of days
Grouping themselves into months and
somewhere listed in years and futility.
Some of these more relevant than others.
All this in hindsight, of course.
But all of them eventually get listed equally
Despite their distance from now,
And the patterns to deceive.
.
Maybe all these places and spaces are appropriately
Filed as leaves falling from trees,
As they play the light floating down,
Ghostly ballerinas of the wooded air.
Each one it’s own scratchy day
Wringing the counting out of us,
Collecting in the patches of light
And shadow.
.
Of course,
Back at the office,
all this started during the pragmatic era,
Which preceded the declining epoch,
Where the rusted pot of drought
Boiled dry, until the metal turned glowing blue
And this time of light appeared as some
Barefoot church-goer:
Enthralled and enthused,
Ready to shake, but still too worn and stiff
To let fall the remaining leaves.
Day Two at the Astronomy Office
Not sure where this experimental astronomy series is going quite yet but wanted to move it here to keep tugging at it…
The eyes of a fish tell all:
Where time is patient and easy,
Measured in long, deep stories,
And every truth,
No matter how awkward,
And probably still unsettling,
Swirls into some great closure
Not yet arrived.
.
Take, for instance,
The hotel lobby:
Shuffling lights of the metropolis,
Hub of travel,
And humanity lost touch with real places,
Like the warm sunshine of its own design.
.
Here, chances not taken
In the tenor of youth
When confidence was still seeded
Under unbroken earth,
Not yet turned to flowers.
And the wilted regrets that often follow.
But that’s time’s story to tell,
Obviously.
.
Outside:
The city,
Painted from afar,
In hard grays,
And street level stains,
Where the lives behind a million drawn blinds
Are scarce and fleeting imaginations:
At least that’s what the eyes might tell,
And the awkward split-second lifetime shudder,
That ensues with a glance,
On another Saturday night.
.
Shared purposes?
Or….
Different and far?
None of it really,
They will be quick to tell,
Not here,
Before I dare look again,
And see the stars so clearly.
Teenage thrills
When postcards were written in the sky
And notes were exchanged in practiced banter
Maybe.
Whatever the case,
The drive was always on landscapes
And shaped by weather.
Fabulous letters spelling places loomed large
Across that endless Flat valley.
Where vacations were taken past the edge,
And the familiar was repeated
every thirty-some miles.
Experiments at the Astronomy Office
Fortitude, perseverance, and integrity
Tedious shades of blue,
Like car commercials
Pushing stately,
Always on sale.
Perhaps a subtle gesture,
Books, papers and the undone
Stacked, scattered and up front.
Or swept aside.
Or the noises cast
By trains passing,
While avoiding the other side
Temples of drudgery
Examples from the inspired,
All the same,
In these tiny worlds
Endlessly turning.
Shaken Rain 