In the slickened shadows,
The sweet, green sugar
Candy-coated secrets
Of silent stone ghosts:
Hidden,
Patient.
.
In the soft, watery hiss
The fabulous eternities
Of sand and sky:
Returning,
Again.
Category: Steelhead Sanity
When Fish Call
Every year, an old friend visits,
Knocking on the morning door,
Before the chickens go out.
Just for a day,
Maybe two.
.
The old rivers of light and heat,
Much alive, cry
In their thirst for night,
With the promises of fading evenings liquored
In the scent of blackberries and stale grass
Hiding in the hot afternoon.
.
This crooked summer:
Like wilting vines on a broken arbor,
Motionless, as they cling fast
To the memories of serpentine edens.
If you go down that way
The slick waters will hold you there.
.
Time will become afternoon’s fast,
Before it curses the evening.
.
There is nothing moving water cannot cure.
Slipping gently downhill.
.
I just love swinging that fly through water I know.
.
One fish took me five years.
The others came back-to-back.
On a warm October afternoon.
The next will be my life.
Daring to dream a death amongst cobbles
On a liquored blackberry evening,
When the wind disappeared.
.
Fodder for caddis,
And winter’s green water to come.
Winter on the Eel
Suddenly, the leaves are all gone.
The storms gave ample notice:
Ignored.
.
The alders will now paint the day’s luster,
On a rare afternoon, posing
As a cruel cheat of Autumn,
Dripping spoonfuls of honey,
Across the big bends of a fresh river.
.
Evenings are still two months out.
.
Here, morning’s curfew still remains
As some lame excuse for the wind
Spoiling the silty corners
After the flood.
.
The easy drips from mossy rocks,
The rare percussion:
The work of silent, green water.
.
I’m trying so desperately
To soak this winter into my bones,
As the water draws lines,
And curves,
And the circles hide things.
.
I know the kids still lean over the bridge,
Peering,
Into the green water mystery,
Waiting to see the ghosts
Brushing against the emerald velvet
Of winter’s passing.
On the Death of a Friend
A telephone call
Is marked by the fearful urgency
That death will bring.
Suddenly,
We don’t have the practiced luxury
Of coming together for a last time.
But you will bring this great pause to us,
Moments of bird songs
And moving water.
Inward, I can see years as spaces,
Filled with people, moments, and habits,
And maybe, in this, Grace:
Saving us from the curse of time.
And now our words,
Wrapped in a fearful gauze of hope
That there is some neat way
To package it all up
Send you on,
Send me on.
These are the useless words,
The real words were then,
Filling all those spaces.
Now, we can only unwind something in us,
Take pause,
In this calloused space of no stories.
There is no book sitting on a table,
Waiting to be read.
And neither of us cared to anyhow.
We would be careful
not to reflect and linger
too long.
In the fleeting grasp,
Of those struggling moments,
that precede absence,
How I will remember our speechless last words.
Only in,
“I love you”
Is there summary
Of time’s wrenching hands.
Despite our rehearsals,
We are not so good
At allowing death
To be the one fluid motion it longs to be.
I love you too, Paul.
Experiments in the Wind
This space, outside, like past years
Came back to visit, in cheers.
Bringing choirs,
Tenors
From trees above,
To the tiniest notes of sands,
All offered from December’s firm hands.
.
You might sing new a new rhythm
To the tells of water
And full moon lullabies.
An old song,
To cast off your wishes,
Before I move along.
.
Show me paths and leeside edens,
Your voice calling, should I turn
To hear.
Bits and pieces on this wheel
Turning,
In time’s great mirror.
.
To be free from this turn,
Take me to the place!
Just outside
the now and then,
Move me
to a different pace.
.
Those melodies pulse softly now,
Of stories you read,
From behind furrowed brow.
.
In electricity of the night you bring,
Nestled softly
In the damp cradle of spring.
.
Woo us from fields afar,
Peering through sky’s great fabric,
Of tatters and thread,
Let me in,
Return me to bed.
November on the Klamath
Night’s silent choir,
Patiently gathered around the roots of trees,
Inside the river’s long bend,
And in the shadows of boulders,
Passing time under morning’s great bridge.
.
Across:
The orange of maples.
Ahead:
Paws of a lone bear.
Behind:
Tracks of a fisherman’s boots
Through the damp, grey sand.
.
These might be cobblestone dreams
On a lazy afternoon,
But that was October’s rhythm:
Summer’s back porch, shaded
In creaky planks
And sliced tomato gluttons.
.
Now, the soft arc of light,
Chilled in air gone stiff and still,
Begging for hunched voices,
That dare not stir old winds,
From behind sedge and willow.
.
A conversation,
The groans and gripes of water on rocks,
Goodbyes of frogs and leaves and liquored blackberry sunsets,
The gratitudes of full moon clouds,
A gift of rain.
.
Hurry,
The long gaze of night
Will soon turn us to pebble and stone,
Smooth and round, barely colored,
In the fading light.
patience in a rainless world
Where is this hard line?
Through forest, over hill,
And across water I’m told
By the old men, gathered along
The river bar, waiting years for a fish
To be caught so they might move on
To the open fields to spend their days
Released from those toils.
.
That thin, frail string stretched
Through dark woods, and
Mirroring the sky,
Where the hard line of a storm
Challenges a stale afternoon.
.
The jagged line of rocks against water,
And the silent boils, softening a long seam
Where currents meet, reunited:
Partnering again in their purpose
As they explore a single winding path
To the place where land ends
And the great depth of the sea begins.
Part II. Listening to Steelhead.
I cannot counter the edge,
Remarkable, memorable, inexorable
In an odd persistence that wanes in it’s coming.
I cannot shape this space.
Green years, short months and how the day suddenly curves away.
The center is far removed from place and time. Eyes turning to the bright prospects of hard lines on skies.
I cannot yield to grace, as the soft illusions of ease tempt me into the chilled waters.
December on the Eel
Here,
Moored
By the soft calling turns
Of a river now purposed by rain,
We can linger in that patient lapse
Between the miseries of drought
And the sudden electricity of flood.
.
The Copenhagen-spitting sages of Weymouth,
And the oared helmsmen at High Rock,
Hiding in their closet cigarettes,
Share chit chat smiles of angst
In the nervous dawn light
While the Chinook-crazed bankies
Debate spoon and roe.
.
And a distant figure
Heaves arcing bright lines
Through shadowy secret boils
And long greasy slicks
In a solitary reverie
Of far-fetched feathered hopes.
.
This is far removed
From the life-gone-easy days of,
say, June,
The routines of August,
Or the Sunday light
After a passing April rain
Reminded us all things
Eventually come back to this time.
Shaken Rain 