Voice of old wind,
Waves of grass, glistening hills,
languishing before trailing off:
One last breath of afternoon,
Exhaling into evening stillness.
.
In my mind, alliterations of delusion,
Delighting in devouring dreamy days,
Silken splines standing steadfast
In riffled rivers of reverence,
Rain risen,
Held hoping.
Old glass, drooping with the passage of years,
Where cobwebs hold fast in corners, collecting dust,
Passing slanted light across a worn table,
Holding the kitchen in a spell.
.
Barely Spring, and the light, now past seven,
Tells of long, nappy afternoons, old summers.
And life-gone-easy moments.
A steady glow reviving old bowls to colorful pasts,
Meals cook perfect here, timed to the clink of fork on plate,
Savory previews where shadows suddenly fell away.
.
This is light that shines through times,
Only possibly happened then, or yet to come,
Illusory memories perhaps, or vague hopes.
Regardless of how these things wrap into one,
This is the luminous clutch of that familiar patience,
We all longed for through chilled and terse days.
.
This is when the old apron, hanging from a hook,
Illumed stains of tomato, crumb and berry pies,
Rendezvous of life and light,
Reflects stories of people,
Moving,
Living.
.
Latest afternoon now,
A creaky floor plank hosting swirled grain,
Where old men gather, smoke and revel in stories,
Lies, really, but laughed around,
Told a hundred times, and still,
Smoothed along springtime’s gentle contours
Waiting to be explored anew.
An afternoon sun casts through the window:
Old cobwebs held fast in corners, gathering dust,
Slanted light cast across the worn table,
Holding the kitchen in a spell.
.
Barely Spring, and the light, now past seven,
Tells of long, nappy afternoons and old summers.
This is a life-gone-easy moment.
A steady glow reviving old bowls to colorful pasts,
Meals cook perfect here, timed to the clink of fork on plate,
Savory previews where shadows fell away.
.
This is light that shines through time,
Stretches far across it, into places, thoughts or moods,
That maybe never happened, or have yet to come,
Illusory memories then, or vague hopes.
Regardless of how these things wrap into one,
This is the luminous clutch of that familiar patience,
We all longed for through chilled and terse days.
.
This is when the old apron, hanging from a hook,
Illumed now in constellations of dust,
Stained in pie, tomato and crumb, a rendezvous of life and light,
Reflecting stories of people,
Moving,
Living.
.
Latest afternoon, a creaky plank hosting swirled grain,
Where old men gather , smoke and revel in stories,
Lies, really, but laughed around,
Told a hundred times, and still,
Contours of a day waiting to be explored anew.
Usually, it never starts with a dream
The dream meticulously sculpted into an expectation
So perfect that the cries of ecstasy roar along the river
Erasing any hope of stillness that might have been there
Had nothing ever been imagined in the first place.
.
Hmmmph
.
Usually it never starts with that first sight
That look into perfection that never was dreamt any better
Better than last time, but only to be washed away
With enthusiasm misplaced and gone awry
In manic flailings trying to capture it all in one fell swoop.
.
Ohhhhh
.
Sometimes, admittedly, it might start with a splash of apathy
Because it has to be done and here we are
And along the way it becomes the next dream
And the perfection reveals itself in little debates
Comparing this to that and wondering if this is even better.
.
Oooooohhhhh
.
Always, though, a script unfolds, eluding time’s wicked arrow
Bathed in a moment eluding any grasp of perfection
Surrounded by silent calls and responses each asking nothing
Together, creating the pulsing song of a mid-winter river.
A long fence, separates angst from hope.
Where luminous spiders,
Fresh from the sea
Lacquer their bodies
In the sticky webs of her gaze.
.
Eyes fixed on the rainy places
Hastened under sun,
Mired in the tired longings,
Indifference: the way things
Could have been.
.
A sorrowful state now,
Lashing out in laughter,
Swatting at the great green globes,
Floating upwards from time’s unwinding
Through air torn with tight-faced frustration.
.
The simple turn of book
Written chapter and verse,
Words of school time practice,
And playground tauntings.
.
The single place where a long fence,
Shadowed by impatience,
Is shot full of holes,
Where pieces of home,
Come and go as shiny bits
In the spring time air.
For three days in spring,
a corner of the yard
framed by young berry canes
vibrant green, a coastal lushness
That will last into July here.
.
not three days in a row,
and maybe not three days,
but pieces, hours,
like the 30 minutes she sat
in still afternoon sun,
listening to winter dispel.
.
And when it all came together,
a warm air, heavy with grass,
Stained with new berry growth
Smelling like last year,
And the year before
All the way back to her childhood.
.
And, for a moment,
A connected-to-everything moment
She would lose sight of the back door,
Sitting ajar,
Letting out some bits of late afternoon
television nonsense
Into the wafting green air.
.
that corner
where the fence ducks behind,
and under the old window
where the laundry has always been
and where, each year,
about this time,
the grass and berries
rise up to consume her
where she sits
for three days each spring
As Jupiter sharpens the night sky,
The blue light unfolding from her cocoon,
And the rest of a thousand years,
The wait,
Now ending.
Find her past the moonlit field,
Striding with the beat of raindrops, wind
And the cast off greed a long night in velvet
Will surely wreak in the soiled heavens
Of a dry field known cold and snippety crisp.
The pace of mornings might seem slow,
Or pass quickly,
It does not matter if the river is loud,
Or passing out the soft gestures of frog water
Gone chilled and clear.
.
So that rivers might fill.
.
Right when morning comes to light,
that’s when the sun,
In a desperate attempt to push into the day
Fails, falling back into the clutch of evening,
Or morning,
Depending on the pace of it all.
.
Autumn now turned cold and brief.
.
Call it empty, quiet or lonely,
Dictated, in part, by the light
Pinning afternoon into one single moment
Of a day that cannot linger here.
.
Summer’s sway long gone.
.
Each time, like the call home
From a forgotten lover never met:
This time of shadowed rock,
And snowy alcoves,
We come here again.
.
Waiting for the rain.
I hadn’t contemplated the distinction between habit, ritual and obsession until now. A stubborn low pressure system parked off the west coast at the end of August sends waves of warm, humid air across the coast, raises goosebumps among the tuna fishermen, but plunges the interior into an unsettled, wavering weather pattern that will surely confuse any fresh steelhead enough to ignore any of my offerings. Afternoon winds wander through the gorge without purpose, and continue to swirl about at sunset somehow dispelling that all-too-short witching hour moment before it all fades into inky blackness amongst frog choirs lathered in waves of crickets and sprinkled with the sounds of splashing fish.
It didn’t happen last night or tonight.
Leave the coast with a stoic confidence that it’s all an easy game of fetch and return home with the resolve that tomorrow will be different.
Habit? Ritual? Obsession?
In early August, the slight wrinkle on his brow,
Pushes sweat into long dusty piles,
Rows of summer’s habits.
Like the year before last
and the year before that.
His is the furled brow of finally remembering.
.
While her eyes, sometime gone askance,
Sagging with days gone long and
Now stale afternoon romance,
Still sparkle,
Like the playground at recess,
When the laughter carries
To those still inside.
Her glance is long and turning,
Letting go of a breath.
.
In a matter of weeks,
fixed on bright sky,
That precious harbinger of hope,
And the only window left,
They will cue up old records,
rehearse the dances,
Recall the words,
And sit, waiting.
Shaken Rain 