Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
along the outer edges: bearing down,
shearing leaves from boughs, thin wrapper
of azaleas crumpled like an after-party
underfoot; summer’s glove peeled
from the bony hand— It plucks
without hesitation red fruit from green,
berries purpling at the rim toward dark;
and above, brisk wind and stippled clouds, wrought-
iron weather vanes swiveling south and farther south.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
We love the things we love for what they are—
the knot’s tight fist which fingers coax to feather out,
chipped tooth, false gold, hesitant smile faint beacon from afar;
and yet we love the things we love, difficult for what they are.
Imperfect shape perennially arising from the bath, embarrassed for its scars:
surrender to the ardor that persists, one way or other undeterred by doubt.
This is the way we come to love the things we love for what they are
—the knot’s tight fist which fingers coax to feather out.
In response to Via Negativa: Omen.
What marvel to turn
the palms open
from the wrists,
then cup them
in a hundred
gestures, flames
flickering at each
outpost on
the wheel.
He ran away, skipped town, bolted the chains
that kept the rest of us rowing in the hold.
Soon no one remembered his many names.
Because he ran away, skipped town, bolted the chains,
all deeds declared him dead, erased his number and his names.
The state will not forgive his ghost that saunters in one day from the cold:
no pension for him that ran away, skipped town, bolted the chains
that kept all the rest of us rowing in the hold.
A tuber, diced and quartered, from the field;
an olive, green and pitted, from the tree.
When times were fallow, love was pressed to yield
a tuber, diced and quartered, from the field.
What one mouth sought, another filled.
That silver integer of fish that burgeoned far from sea.
A tuber, diced and quartered, from the field;
an olive, green and pitted, from the tree.
The inspector came back and said There is a live tree root growing in the middle of your crawl space and someone will have to dig to trace which way it grows out into the yard, then cut it. I know such growth won’t be rapid, but that unchecked it will crack the concrete foundation, lift the posts from the earth, tilt the beautiful polished floorboards away from the beams. What I want to know is what kind of tree, even if I already know not camphor, not eucalyptus, not acacia, not pine.
*
Not eucalyptus, not pine, not the branches that rattle our dreams at night. Flying to San Francisco, I see the thick indigo nets of cloud beyond the window, and a single gash of bright orange where the light pushes through before it sinks. Evening star, says the mother to her fretful child who pulls at his ears and is about to bawl. Oh wait, that’s another plane. How many mistakes did early explorers make, tracking the oceans for routes to gold and spice? We are always mistaking one thing for another but it’s alright: I make a wish anyway.
*
I make a wish though I believe in love and work more than in superstition. But I will bathe your limbs in oil of eucalyptus and water where cinnamon bark has steeped. I will bring trays of eggs and my petitions to a chapel where nuns in pink habits kneel day and night in prayer chains. I have slit the skins of sacrifice and danced on coals on orders of the gods. O beloved in this inscrutable universe, do not let the demons of distrust dissuade. Pitch your strongest root beneath the dome of heaven: not even the four winds could uproot you.
In response to Via Negativa: Conceivable.
to the rush of engine noise
beneath our seats; to the lilt
of the woman’s sari-clad voice
three rows ahead, humming
a tune that might be
token for our passage.
We went today
to measure walls
and turn the soil;
we sorted stones
that floated into
our buckets
from the well.
I thought it a good
omen that a fig tree,
copper-clad,
drowsed in the middle
of the driveway.
It is the Past’s supreme italic
makes the Present mean—
~ Emily Dickinson, “Glass was the Street— in Tinsel Peril” (#1518)
My cities and estates are made of smoke
and poems, my résumé laced with ample
culs-de-sac. You must have known
I could not trade my mountains
for plains so desolate in the heat.
I longed for the absolving rain, erasure
of missteps: poor choices, my rush
to cash the currency before its prime.
But now the sight of any small
tenderness moves more than grief
that runs its salt into the soil:
a flower smaller than my finger-
nail bursts white upon the sill
then shrivels; and yet it gifts
its fragrance like a signature.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
Once dressed in green, no hopes
fly south; instead they burn
their orange prayer flags.
*
The mallet and the string,
the shawm and the oboe. The single
reed that stirs when the water stirs.
*
And the cornets of brass, bright
relatives to the sickle: its rusted
bronze curve leaning against the wall.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.