Your voice,
Hoarse, crackled and thin,
From the still shadowed corner
Of a landscape, starving,
And touched by the end
Of a once great circle,
Now warped
And faded away from time.
.
Will you walk with me again?
Category: climate
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.
Journey to the Rain Latitudes
The pink clouds are a surprise.
A glowing refreshment,
Then a long exhale
Of a wearied man having trudged so long
Through dust,
Succumbed to the dull stone,
Scraped in thorns,
Pasted in stickery sweat,
To a vista:
visited before,
Briefly.
.
The slow release into newness,
And old places returning.
.
This thirst will not go,
It’s scratching, clawing,
Snatching nights,
And holding fast in the haze of dawn.
.
Give me the sweet smells of loam,
And damp leaves.
Passing edens
Languishing
In the softness of decay.
.
My long exhale,
Reprieves from these gasping anxieties,
Before I sit and listen,
To the sharpening air,
As the first water
Falls on the dry grass.
Anniversaries
And Summer’s Dwelling.
Now:
The soft urgency of evening comes as a call of light.
Light in windows,
And the closing edge of shadows,
Where far off night calls for tomorrow’s respite.
The last places fold themselves into corners,
Where sounds hide,
Descending,
Slipping into a quickening stop now,
While yielding to the hills beyond
Staring down at our polka dot splendor,
While they wait their turn.
.
Now, the calendar gets marked,
Not in numbers and squares,
But in these lines,
Those corners,
And the rough shapes of passed time.
.
Now I remember this path,
Where it led,
How it was worn somewhat,
But tread in new shoes,
At a steady pace,
To the whims of clarity,
And the luxuries delivered
From the old shadows
Lurking all the while
Among the familiar.
Ancestral Valleys
Ancestral Valley
Scales across piano keys
Playing brisk,
With rising hills
Hiding their own verses
from the broad, watery grasslands
Where the deep ebb and flow of tides
And storms
And winds
And floods
And in the great dryness
Things move
In a time not meant for lingering,
Things pass
And begins the vast wait for new:
A return to the gently rocking cradle.
The Many Solitudes of Sun –
Life on the ragged edge of a Mediterranean climate:
Born raw
Again this morning
Sudden, under the monotony
Of unchanged days.
What’s left to tip this scratched record?
Slipping beats, mercilessly turning
To an old song
Still sharp and biting
But in new ways not heard then.
How far south
Or north
Or just across
Do I need to go
For the broad skies
Painted in pastel masteries.
Haunted eden,
Before the waiting time resumes.
The light still slides
But plays to a bad rhythm
A bad rhythm going down.
.
Again,
Some of this time might linger.
Mix.
Into the endless eddies of days
But is quickly lost
On the downhill slide.
.
One day, crazy boisterous
The next,
Of long slumber,
Or the deep haze
Cast across dry fields
And the aches fired by dust and wind.
.
Here the days slide with the light,
The rhythm of new times again.
Experiencing Climate (in progress)
Afternoon breeze:
Throes of some beloved time
Mark this place,
Scribbling old, stale letters,
With the earth casting the scantest of shimmers.
.
Recalling its vast flatness,
Where things far gone
Seem close,
Is a breeze that weans all
From time’s pulsing song
And the golden bars of space.
.
Lazy:
Like days on end become.
.
Secretive:
Passing through leaves
And other spaces.
With barely a gesture:
Surprising in its arrival,
Fading in its passing.
Like lifting a finger
To a circling moth
And seeing another
Move along a ragged edge of focus:
Near soundless wings a flutter.
.
The breeze sits and waits
‘Til all else passes,
When it will stand and tell stories
In a hushed voice
That carries far,
Like grief and love
All mingled in the fields:
Meeting for the first time.
June 26
June 26.
Is the real day here,
Latest sunset of the year
When it all comes gathering up
To glide into the doldrums
Today is the crest of a small wave
On some pond
Rarely visited in the brush
Especially on hot days
When it becomes the throne
For snakes and frogs
Having their day
On the crest of a small wave
This is the silent pulse
The long ebb
The onset of exhale
The practice of patience
If I could count flowers and leaves
I might try drawing the ripples
Depending on the amount of time
Getting lost in time’s subtle traps
Pulling us into drying gopher holes
Where new life goes on.
I have to step gently from today,
Steadfast in foot,
Hopping the waves
Or pointing to the shadows
The marks they leave
The same as the last go
Except changed
When I start counting.
Shaken Rain 