(draft)
The dancing people lay waiting:
Dreaming of the waves,
And diamonds,
Cast across the sand.
.
A curtain call of phantoms,
Ghosts of the full moon,
Leave footprints
For the sun to feast on.
.
The bridge is long,
Steady and sure,
Crossing nothing
But the arc of blue sky,
Where the reach of time
Scatters the ashes of remorse.
(Granny’s Porch – Part III)
Chance the big window again:
Steady watcher of lives,
Arbiter of time.
Soon, a new April sun,
Will check the clock,
And beckon the worn out times,
Still hidden in dusty corners.
.
I only remember frail fingers
Wiping down the pane, distorted by years,
Sparkling like piano keys,
Touched by children,
Where the sharpness of notes,
Hovers and holds,
Sprawling across the old wood floor.
.
My grandfather grasped her hand,
To dance that one day,
Then, after a year,
His death was bathed in a soft-smiled comfort.
We were mesmerized,
While our sadness,
Was framed in the hard line of rain,
Faithfully passing.
.
Soon, granny’s gospel hymns fade,
Her soft hums trailing off,
Leaving the creak of the back door,
Where the kids still run in,
And out,
Chasing the first flowers of spring,
Reaching for the sweet nectar in the skies above.
Our darlings of winter,
Tell us once more,
This passing of water,
That hungry denial of patience,
You so much waited for.
.
Your stories to fill a coming empty:
One last time.
Oh, please.
.
Our darlings of winter,
Give us this one day.
.
How many times,
Have we seen this moon set,
Sharp crescent,
Sliver of time,
Counting years,
To cast once more,
A warm May evening?
.
Our darlings of hope,
Freedom, maybe,
From bondage of self and season.
.
Please.
If I could take the whole forest into my hand,
Tanoak, madrone, and the spicy essence
Of a lone fir tree,
And squeeze it out into a single drop:
The liquor of dark, damp soil,
Moss and rocks.
Then let this droplet flow carelessly
Down some small trickle of winter’s remains,
Gather it up,
Warm it gently,
And partake of the world,
This place,
A moment captured.
Outstretched into a warm, fetching wind that will define this winter.
Your arms,
Frustration and reaching,
One more time.
Your arms,
Grasping my lumbering, cold body
Shaking,
Pulled from a creek,
Thundering in flood.
.
Your arms,
Will soon hold me, bedridden and tired of the years,
Finally.
Your arms,
In April, as the sun’s hope returned
And I slipped easily into the familiar light,
Cast across us both in one last embrace.
There, at the far end of the long, ramshackle yard,
Where grandpa’s garden starts,
And the apricot tree:
Pilfered Mockingbird delights,
For us, the watch from a circle of chairs
Some Sunday afternoon.
.
But that was before the rain,
And the wind, and shuttered windows,
Only to peek, to scratch its belly,
We knew when to stay in
And dash out,
Before the water came
Or in between.
.
Then we were graced with the long showery spring,
Great stories I was since told, in thunder and sun,
While I huddled in fear of night and flashing sounds,
In the time of peas,
And chicken manured spring gardens.
.
The San Joaquin would run high that spring
Into the summer
When the first zucchini bloomed,
And we rinsed the last of the mud from our socks.
Like it always was,
Back there, where the water still was.
March, April, May
Those hideous months of spring
And dying.
Times to drink to oblivion
Or get sober
Because things have gotten that bad.
More than once.
.
Summer is just a known
Constant staleness, defying perpetuity.
And time of asking calendars
About the rules of a waiting game,
Measured in drought,
Day length,
And sometimes tomatoes.
.
Give me those 4 days in October,
September, November.
Doesn’t matter:
It’s when the counting ceases,
And the shadows come to stay.
Overhead: the soaring sounds,
Calling.
Down here:
The edgy electricity
Jostles limbs,
Loosening blackened blooms
And thickened tassels
Of tiny pears to the back porch
Wind chime chatter.
Damn these winds!
To stir stale oceans,
Stomping seasons,
And lifting life anew
In their leaving.
The jostle of limbs,
Loosening more tiny pears,
To the erratic beat of restless wind chimes,
While overhead, the soaring sound persists.
Down here: an edgy electricity.
Damn those winds!
That stir oceans,
Recharge life,
And change seasons.
In one fell swoop.
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.
Shaken Rain 