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.
Old pavement pulls the street through years
Times of sand tossing curly haired kids
In dried grass: the habit of neglected August,
Swallowing all of late winter’s craving
Into dusty, cob-webbed corners,
Missed by heaven, skipped by hell –
Once sharp places, long gone stale.
.
Pale skies cast through wrinkled gauze,
Illumed with worried skin,
Pallor of a re-ran TV set,
Where smoke lingers,
Coffee goes warm, then sour
And a chorus of days hangs in the hour.
.
Tattered screen, leaning fence –
That hard line parting the space of time
From the washed light in a dusty corner,
Speaking truth, three doors down,
Along a street, at the edge of town.
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
The asbestos shingle fell off long ago,
Along the wall in front,
Where the living room hides behind closed curtains.
She won’t recall when or where it even went.
.
The yard, larger than most,
Along this back street of small homes
And odd-sized yards.
Is only slightly overgrown,
In the way that chores
sneak past habit,
To sporadic neglect.
.
Ringed in a low fence,
That once kept a dog in,
Or a playing child safe from harm.
.
Simple things like that, they once had,
Or at least dreamed of.
.
But years of cigarettes and drink,
Took him
From her,
In a long night of oblivion.
.
Happily-ever-after into eternity
Came to an end,
Suddenly.
.
But she stopped crying long ago.
.
The days now might looked rehearsed,
Her shift at the grocery store,
Unchanged for the last three years.
.
There was the time her brother came out
And the fellow down the street,
Who would call from time to time,
Their appearances so long ago,
But seeming like yesterday.
In a place where time keeps pace
With the falling of an asbestos shingle
From the living room wall.
.
She rarely looks me in the eye,
Like she did then,
Pulling off a cigarette,
While the sun casts crimson
Across a high cloud deck
With a single opening out east,
Where she imagines great blue winged dragons
Will fly in,
And dance around the yard.
That winter, they fought tooth and nail
Over how best to prune the apple tree.
Dad: sure in his years, like the tree
Perhaps their best years gone by
Or the most celebrated to come.
.
And, Son: the new idea,
Like newfound loves,
Light, lively and vigorous.
.
Tree: wind worn, deer scraped
And broken long ago,
Now crooked like time
In places where things move little,
To those who have the patience to see.
.
Picture Dad: looming over wrinkled pewter skies
Tall on the visions he nurtured long ago,
While the long angles of his fingers,
Turned and knuckled, like the branches,
Tracing the grand plans he still holds,
Across a chill February wind.
.
And Son: bright, leafy shade tree
For long naps in summer sun,
While his places, perhaps dormant still,
Waiting for Spring warmth
Like the budded branch,
To be rattled and tested on the next stormy wind.
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.
Shaken Rain 