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.
Tag: winter
The great ebb
.
That long exhale, now,
To unrehearsed mornings
Lasting all day,
Again.
.
Sunday church scattered us,
Like the wind, here, lost in tree leaves,
Drawing the scent of damp ground:
Something bigger and even quieter
than my own god could conjure,
Right under my feet.
.
I could barely hear the sounds
Of water toiling through rocks,
Unwavering mentor of time,
Sliding across great skies
Painted in pastel reveries:
November’s gauze, now,
So easy and gentle.
Farm House Kitchen
(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.
A Solstice Remembered
I thought October would take the edge off.
After all, there’s no way this fickle light
and a few chance rains
Could turn my head any further.
.
Now the garden is all dead,
The light,
All left to morning now,
Just like yesterday,
And then again.
Please give me this solace,
Wanted and waited for,
Just this day.
.
Until you visit me in December,
With your gauze of reckoning
Perched overhead.
.
Then, I’ll remember the river,
All fog bound and sullen,
Bit by bit,
Tearing to pieces
The lives of nothing.
.
I hope your storms will roar,
Dark, dripping days,
Left with just a little ray of light,
Catching one more leaf,
Falling,
Into some forgotten cradle.
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.
Central Valley River
All these days start with hope,
Optimism,
And some serpentine skepticism
That stays put
While the water lies flat and glassy.
.
This valley fog,
Soured and pressing,
will harken feelings of home,
Summoning some seasonal, familial promise.
.
This is a cold morning:
River hosting winter,
Almost a thing of the past,
On the shortest day of the year,
Defining the deepest place of then,
Like the hottest sequestered August afternoon:
When, as kids,
We were shut in,
And left wanting for a calling evening breeze
Never to come.
Or, now, just a brief parting sky:
A blue never seen.
.
This is the Great Valley: Tethered in the cliche
Of fog
And heat.
.
In both:
Rain is forgotten,
In the wretched gossip,
That orchards will tell.
.
But here,
When the gentle boils of this big river
Still breathe steady,
The scope of years, lives and old people:
No matter how unreal,
Or long,
Turns, now, slowly into view.
They lived this,
And danced to the sound.
.
Hunker down, into this patient water,
Fish, sands and winter bugs still crawl.
Feel this breeze:
What should be gentle and pleasant,
Is biting,
Up along the fetch of a journey,
That is not ours,
But must be.
This chill is almost enough,
We should turn away.
.
Ultimately, though, this grey sky grabs me
Takes me,
Stretches me,
Into the fading call,
Of a day that just got started.
.
Postnote: this could be the San Joaquin, the Merced, the Tuolomne, the Mokelumne, the Feather, the Sacramento, or a whole host of small streams that drain the west slope of the Sierra Nevada. All these rivers regain their magic during magnificent California winters and were once home to people that lived in a truly splendid place now fading into a soon-to-be-forgotten glorious past.
Home is where the water runs from the hills.
New climates and old winter base flows
Gosh,
How the hydrology seeps back out of our bones,
Pouring across landscapes gone silent,
And waiting.
.
This is the way way it used to be,
Like some song playing in the corner juke,
When bars crowded early
And left well before closing.
.
This storm won’t give you resolution
Not yet,
Years will go by
Until the sun sets on a foggy bottom land
In the stalest of latest possible summers
When water is again a pastime,
As the next wind blows:
Turning heads, and raising the mutterings
Of those who still live out there.
Celebrating the 4th Rain
Like old days come to visit again,
Now the dampness will live here,
For a good long while, Defining
Hopefully
This place and this time.
Soon, the waves of hungry cold
Will take the leaves,
Peaches, pears, finally the apples.
Always the last apple.
.
Released, now
To a brief ease of playing in a fickle sun
Soon covered by the gauze of quick rains.
Rains that sneak through,
Leaving grand dripping choirs
And the late night sounds of wet soil.
.
The day opens to waters passing,
And the joy of new light.
West Coast Therapy Sessions
Remember the winter that barely passed a month?
And then came the sun.
Yes, still cool enough
To host lingering frosty mornings.
Until the heat came,
And February anniversaries
Were forever changed.
On that exact day thirty years prior
Snow, days of snow
Then ten days of ice five years later
Frozen,
With the surprise light dusting
Of sea level snow for a casual two year memory.
.
And then the rains would come again.
Now,
I tenuously hold on to a line in an article
Discussing the human experience
Of a changing climate:
There will still be good days.
Fractal Gardening
Obviously the pattern plays out a bit
Random at first glance.
Time worked into the edges,
And the small becomes large,
And the oldest wood grain
Of a leaning fence post stands tall.
.
A hundred little emergencies scatter out front
Swirling amongst the thousand arms of possibilities.
The intricacies of pattern,
The frustrations of patches.
Shaken Rain 