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.
Set the horizon just above the bones
There.
Lying deep in chill
Layered in soiled mantles,
The spring grass waits
In the churn of hope
And the customs that years tend to build.
Like promises from old friends:
Taken easily,
without haste,
And carried through the field.
.
Mind this vista well.
Explore the escapes of hills
And secret creeks,
Long walks during the bright times,
Wanderings during foggy mornings,
And the staggering stupors
Of the dying weeks.
.
Lean back,
Eyes closed,
Stars above,
Feet below.
Breathe the air,
Sparkling now,
Shimmering,
In evening’s soft glow.
.
April 20, 2021
Western North America
Before the wind blows, the morning will hang raw and sunny. There is a bare urgency that hangs in the leaves of a cottonwood looming over everything here. The trembling leaves now might tell us the waiting is nearly over. The air has a stretched stillness to it, about to break time’s pace open to its whims.
We will participate, now into this day hammering into every crevice of the bank, through every stone, and seeping into our bones. The sun still shines warm and bright, the sky can easily pull you away.
Later, thunderstorms will build over the hills ringing the valley, deepening our backdrop, focusing our will into the hope that change will happen. This will turn, and leave us again in stillness. And we move with the water’s rhythm, pushed by wind into the next bend. Here we might stop and see the first of evenings bugs pulled upward, or tumbled along the water’s steady surface. A trout might even take a grab here or there, teasing us with their sudden disappearances after we think we’ve figured them out. We lean and ponder, search water, feel wind, absorb a big sky alive with later afternoon. This is where all else falls away.
She first asked me in that cloying way,
When things are up for hiding.
She asked me again,
When I shook my head not hearing this go.
And then she asked
if I remembered that tiny piece of March,
And how it dug deep into our skin
And lasted
Until we couldn’t bear it any more.
Shaken Rain 