September 21, 2020

Equinox

Here, now, poised between
intractable poles,

I stretch out my arms,
and they are drawn,

pulled by the magnetism

of extremes, balanced 

a moment, and lifted into 

embrace of the world 
that centers me here, now.

 September 8, 2020

My Terms

Every idle word is a small asphyxiation,
each syllable a stolen bit of life, an
     unnecessary expenditure of breath,
a waste of vital force, a micro-heist.

Stop. Just stop. Stop talking.
I can't breathe.

You can't be here. You need to take
a vow of silence – or I do. But since
     neither of us can pull that off
right now, albeit for different reasons,

you are not welcome here. Come back 
when you have learned the value of your 
     breath, and mine, when you can 
go about for days at a stretch without

uttering a single jot or tittle. Only then
might we begin to commune – maybe – 
     and only so long as you honor the
resonant silence I need to survive.

 What I Mean When I Say I'm Tired

Done. Cooked, like Christmas turkey.
Ready to be carved, plated, served with
gravy. There's a good deal of life left 
in me, in other words: 

   sliced leftovers for cold sandwiches, 
   chunks fit for a hearty noodle stew, 
   and bones – all my many bones – 
   still brimming with marrow and 
   capable of yielding up gelatinous
   surprises when cooled after simmering 
   in the stock pot for hours in the company
   of a halved onion, two celery stalks,
   and a few whole carrots.

In short, I have quite a bit left to give – 
many bits, in fact, juicy and nutritious.
But some judicious someone else will 
have to draw them out, preserve and
apportion them for the needy, 'cause 
I'm done.

 September 2, 2020

Anticipation

Something about Today feels Big.

I cannot tell, from the Outset,

whether it is Big-Good or Big-Bad,

or Both,

or Neither.

But it's Something. Some Thing

has shifted, maybe in me or 

under my feet. I slogged up this 

Hill – I can't quite remember 

now Why – and squeezed into 

a Crack

in this lichen-skinned

Boulder, my back arched

Backward to Pass Through, an 

inside-out Prayer pose, chin Lifted,

eyes Arrowed toward the 

Light at the Other End, although

it's not like I had a Choice as to 

that; once in the Corridor, I could

not turn my Head 'Round. I would

have had to back out Blind if I could

not make the

Passage.

Fog met me on This Side – the Bright

Kind, when you know Sun will 

Burn Through the suspended Water

in no Time, but until then you

Manage, taking small steps in this

land-loving Cloud, waiting, 

Waiting . . . .

I want to clear some space, 
perhaps a little time too, if
I'm lucky. But I'd start with

space,

and see where it takes me.
It's a luxury, I know. Just
the thought of some room

        to breathe

and stretch, to widen my
arms and my stance, pan
up and out and back, gets

 the forces

coursing in my veins. Of
course, it's not enough,
thought. For that matter,

        to want

is not enough, still too
heady for the job, too
still. So I move. Space

clears.

Harbingers

A hot wind stirs the briefest of rains – 
                                      not water, but
pocked, yellow light catchers,
whorling shards of captured sunrays,
too spent from heat to hang on until
weather cools, days contract,
but not so far gone they don't
have work to do, 
               still.

They are loosed from the hickory 
               choir, where
they sang out breath to the world.
But their release lies ahead still,
a slow leakage of stored sunlight
into soil, to nourish next year's 
crop of choraliers and thus fail
to expire fully, ever.

               Still.

I know all this, and yet I find it
               unsettling,
this wind that carries the song of 
things to come. It is too early for 
this, I whisper, even as spinning
chips of gold dazzle my eyes. I 
want summer's stillness 
to stay, well, 
                still.

 August 19, 2020

Motion Picture

It takes longer than you think, this

          living-into-dream

business, and it's harder too, because

the dream itself is a living thing,

growing and changing like a child.

It recurs, loops back on itself, but

never all the way back to the start,

          incarnating

in unsteady pulses: gather, molt, 

recollect, shed, wander, rehome.

It searches for itself, finds tid-bits 

here and there, tiny keepsakes fit to fall 

into the mosaic trailing in its wake,

           comely pieces

that settle in place – or don't – as the

           dream moves on.

August 17, 2020

Storytime, Magic

Read me stories, or just tell me some,
from when you were my age and the world
was wider, more nebulous, and how you
picked your way through, or it picked you.

We could cuddle in the rocker or build
a pillow fortress on the floor, a sort of
makeshift stronghold, or softhold as it
were, the making of which makes me

believe – in me, yes, and in making more
generally, and in the me who is made by
making, especially the making of time,
fantastic a notion as that is. I am here

to make that sort of magic, with you.

 

August 13, 2020

Offboarding

Not at this pace. I cannot make out the truth

through the blur of rush, the hurried, harried,

headlong whir of Forward, Onward – NOW!

No. I want to circle back, back to that doe I 

glimpsed in the meadow you missed because 

you looked down for 2.5 seconds as the train

barreled ahead, breaking the necks of who

knows how many creatures more intimately

acquainted with limits and the instinct for

self-preservation. The irony is not lost on me

as I contemplate how to jump off this blind

iron horse with my own neck still intact. If I

somehow manage the feat, I'll take to the 

pace of my human feet – akin to the pace of

my human heart – and return to that meadow,

follow the doe's tracks to the tree-lined edge,

where perhaps she has stowed her dappled

twin fawns in the understory, where grass

warblers flit in and out of shadow, feeding

on insects grown on the riches cast off by 

earthworms turning, churning soil below.

 August 12, 2020

I want to live a solar-powered life.  I can make out only the dimmest outlines of what that looks like, what it means, its affirmative contours.  I know it has much to do with drawing my energy from real-time sources – sources, that is, from which energy is generated and renewed very close in time (and space) to its point of use.  Here on Earth, the Sun is the ultimate source of real-time energy; indeed, from a human perspective (or a biological perspective, more broadly), you could say it is the source of real-time itself.

So to say that I wish to live a solar-powered life is, perhaps, just another way of saying that  I wish to live in real time, and not on borrowed time (which might be an oxymoron) or on stolen time (which gets closer to the truth, probably).  The logical conclusion of such a wish might lead me to say that I aspire to become a plant, so that I can draw my energy from the Sun directly.  But here I bump up against biology: it is blood coursing through my veins and not chlorophyll.  My essential carbon chains center on an atom of iron, whereas those of my plum tree – and every other thing that photosynthesizes – center on an atom of magnesium.  And that one tiny molecular difference, that one substitution of iron for magnesium in my lifeblood, means that while the plum tree lives by sunbathing, I must live by the plum.  

Plant-dependence is thus the very essence of my being.  I am removed from the Sun by an additional degree. My relationship to the Sun must be mediated.  Plants are the gatekeepers, the mediators, the go-betweens, the peacemakers.  Blessed are the plants.

June 12, 2020

Luna Moth

I'm reaching here, for what
         I don't quite know.
         I can only guess.
But the stretch feels good,
enlivens my limbs, occasions
the piercing of general oblivion
by silent yelps of beauty: the
heart-of-the-earth, flowering in
the field like a fat lavender; the
luna moth, paling to white with
expiration at the end of his given
season, his lower wing spots like
the eyes of eternity peering in
         on time, inviting
         a reciprocal gesture.

June 11, 2020

The Art of Packing

The secret is rolling. If all
you're doing is folding, you
have not yet arrived. Start
with folding, but then go
further: smaller, tighter still.
Fold each article into a
narrow strip, not much wider
than your palm and as smooth
as you can manage – or as you
can live with. (Every wrinkle
will be magnified when
this luggage reaches its
destination and its contents are
exposed to the light of day, so
your degree of care at this stage –
your art – will be evident later.)
Press one end of the strip with
your fingers – ideally the more
open end, with the looser bits –
and roll inward and upward;
massage away any underside
wrinkles by outward sweeps
with your thumbs until you reach
the other end. Once there, take
the roll in hand and set it neatly
on its seam, where the far end
meets the accumulated body,
now compressed, of the rest of
the material. If your work is at
least fair – which is often, if not
usually, the best you can hope for –
gravity and the tension of your
surface should hold the work
together. Repeat the process
for each article bound for this
journey, before nestling them
like rows of nursing pups in
the suitcase. Since you won't
be traveling with them, feel
free to whisper Bon voyage!
as you zip or clasp them in.

June 8, 2020

A Certain Invitation

I brush up against a sure thing
only in this: certainty is a fool's
errand, yet a certain measure
of it is required. Just how much
is not clear – it depends on the
circumstances – but paralysis
reigns in its absence, and fully
loosed it can only bludgeon and
oppress. A certain via media is
called for, but walking it is a
tenuous affair, the traverse of a
tightrope strung between high
rises without safety rigging, the
kind you only want to see – if
at all – in retrospect, not in real
time, after the danger has passed
by one means or another. And
you certainly wouldn't want to
walk it yourself, that's for sure.
This is spectator sport – unless
you wish to know more than a
counterfeit freedom. Step out.

June 7, 2020

Commencement

         For the graduating classes of 2020

By now, it's a truism,
and truisms, as a rule,
are not the stuff of
poetry.

Hell, if you ask
many professionals
they're not even fit for
prose.

Of course, there are
good and sensible
reasons for this,
chief

among them how
hollowed-out is the
unearned, unlived
platitude,

how devoid of the
textures of world, how
divorced from bodily
sense.

Yet, the world seems
unmoored, right now,
allergic to even the
idea

of truth. Perhaps a
reintroduction is in
order. I'll start
(again):

Ends mark beginnings.
Wind breaks the heavy
sunflower head, scatters
resurrection.

June 6, 2020

           
The problem is the fight's gone
                                          out of me.
It just lifted off like a flock
of geese moving north again,
in retreat from oppressive heat.

I'm still here, of course, unwinged,
                                          flightless,
sweating – not from any rush
of adrenaline – wondering
what one does when neither 

fight nor flight is an option, when
                                          the instinct
for self-preservation is muted,
dulled, stalled, watered and
weighted down, soft.

Soft. It would be different
                                          if it came
with an exclamation point.
But soft! Like Eureka! Like a
light breaking through.

But this is softer still, no
                                          breaking
involved, just a quiet settling
into this season, pacific and
vulnerable, subject to change.

June 5, 2020

Alas, I lack a mind for business,
that ill-fitting cloak with no contours
or pleats – or the wrong ones – that
swallows me whole, as a child inside
her father's oxford or beneath a bolt
of tent fabric unfurled but otherwise
unused. It should, perhaps could, be
safe under there, but the material
hangs heavy on me, shapeless and
without proper ventilation. I lack the
tailor's sharp-edged and pointed tools,
and wouldn't know how to use them
anyhow, were they to appear on my
doorstep, prepackaged, glinting, even
with a serviceable set of instructions.
I would be just as apt to cut myself –
nay, more so – as to deal as sharply as
necessary to cut the cloth to a size and
pattern suited for the part. I lack a flair
for theater as well, so the course is fairly
doomed. I might as well just admit this
and get on with business of another kind
entire, of a body and mind drawn to
matters of top soil, root vegetables,
small livestock, the effects of gravity on
rainwater – and the piecing together of
words in their celebration and preserve.

June 4, 2020

Dropping the Argument

This is too neat, too tidy, too
                                              just so.

It is sacred imbalance moves us
        forward, the seeking and
never quite finding that calls us
into new space. We find ourselves
in a secret glade we didn't know
                                             existed.

But here it is, and here we are,
                         incontrovertably so.

So.

I confess to limits, to these limits
        in particular, to the hedges
that ring this quiet place, make
it holy. I confess to those I did not
know existed: here you are,
                        incontrovertably so.

I confess to seeking refuge in 
                                            just-so
spaces, in neat and tidy quarters
offering respite, however brief, from
the ravages of unholy chaos. But
                                           existence

requires more trust than can grow
        inside such walls, calls us
into new space, open sometimes,
others hedged and hushed. So.
Sacred imbalance it is,
                       incontrovertably so.

 June 3, 2020

Awakening

Upon discovery of the lie, she went about
room to room, appreciating its comforts.
Such a lovely lie, she thought, so breezy.

So free.

It would be easy to stay here, she thought.
I could just crawl into this four-poster bed,
pull the covers over my head and let the
servants tend the garden and cook supper.
No matter that the servants with beating
hearts had been replaced decades ago with
ores mined from Earth's heart, assembled
and delivered using still more ores, and
running, that very moment, on still more.
All the better, she thought. All the ease,
none of the guilt. It would be easy to stay.

But she knew better, now. Now she knew
it was a lie – a lovely, lovely lie – this ease.
She knew there were heaps of guilt, whole
tracts of land bearing the marks of the all-
consuming beast that vomited ores over the
landscape like plague. It was in the marrow
of her bones. Looking up from the bed, she
crossed the room to the window, gazed out
at the plot she had traced just days before
to put in a garden, her first. This could
be more lovely, she thought. More real.

Truly free.

June 2, 2020

Turtle Crossing

I hew close to the ground,
cutting a line from a wintering pond
                        to a summering pond
through mow-spared grass,
tall, threaded with wildflowers.

I have made this journey
many times, ported my own shelter
                        enough seasons
to know the new heft it takes
on each year. I put on mass.

By now, I'd make a pricey
meal for any predator so inclined:
                       only the foolish
or the uninitiated would risk a
toe or nose for me now.

But I harbor no illusions:
I am still game for those with
                      guns and gasoline.
I carry no shelter against
cruelty and carelessness.

So, venerable ancient or no,
I haul my accumulated mass up to
                      the edge of the road.
I take my chances with the rest
of Creation, begin to cross over.

June 1, 2020

The Queen's Hospitality

I stop and ask the box turtle
soldiering across the road,
Where are you going, friend?
Can I help you along?

To the spotted frog
diving back into his watery hole,
away from the thud-suck of boots,
I say, You're welcome here, friend.
Please make yourself at home.

I holler at two circling buzzards,
their shadows passing through
the tall grass like fish in reeds,
Did you find something good?
Come back any time now, y'hear?

I spray a strong garlic solution
on the garden beds to ward off
wild rabbits, but remind them
when we meet in the orchard,
Y'all eat all the grass you want.

But when the bees arrive, I
pull out all the stops. Look!
I tell them, cupping a daylily
and brushing the lavender,
I planted these for you, yours.

Will you take some
home to your momma for me?
She keeps me sane, grounded.
It's the very least I can do.

May 31, 2020

Sunflower Conspiracy

Child, look at me. I see your face, so much
        like my own. We have work to do,
        clean-up work. Let's get to it.

I'll send you my love – light – and conduct
        the winds and rains your way.
        You'll have to reach deep into

the ground beneath you to pull what else
        you need, up with some of the
        hurt that's been left there by time,

ignorance, carelessness, plain meanness.
        Together, and with help from the
        other four kingdoms, we'll do this.

We'll set this right, child. Just set your face
        on me until it's too heavy, then let
        your burdens drop, to start anew.

May 30, 2020

The No That Means Yes

If you think you can rush this, just stop.
If you think you can squeeze just one
        more thing onto that ridiculous
        to-do list of yours, just one
        more task into the live-long day,

just . . . no. You can't do it – or yourself –
justice like that. The day is not some sad
        buffet, an obscene smorgasbord,
        both product and predictor of
        waste, from which to heap your

plate with Hawaiian pulled pork, fried
rice, a slice of prime rib (or two), plus
        a bowl of shrimp gumbo on the
        side, to shovel down the gullet
        before returning for two dollops

of banana pudding over soft ice cream.
Just . . . no. This is a recipe for madness,
        disease, death by starvation for
        coherence, by thirst for restraint
        that sweetens and affirms Life.

May 29, 2020

Educycle

I should know all this by now.
                                               Ebb and flow.
But no, I need to hear it again.
                                               Wax and wane.
And it's okay. Take the time.
                                               Crest and fall.
Learn the lesson. Forget it.
                                               Rise and set.
Re-learn the lesson.
                                               Wake and sleep.
Dearest,
                                                roll with it.

May 28, 2020

Confession of a Professional Weightlifter

Y'all. I'm tired – like, knees-ache-just-sittin'-here tired,
like, I-can't-carry-my-own-bodyweight tired, let alone
your troubles. This, and my eyelids feel heavy. This,
the burden of expectations –legitimate and otherwise–
the burden of history, the burden of all the tiny wrong
choices that have built up over time, each one a fine
speck of silt settled behind the dam, adding an almost
infinitesimal pressure – almost; each one an ant, whose
body with all the other insect bodies outweighs all the
human bodies, combined, many times over. I'd like to
just get over this, but it's all I can do to get out of bed.

May 27, 2020

Thieves and Vandals

The mouse who carries your bread off
        one crumb at a time is no less
the thief for parsing out the heist, as
the termites who mill your house into
        sawdust, gnaw by patient gnaw,
are no less the vandals for the duration
        and quiet of their undoing work.

Vigilance and attention are due, but
        distraction is today's disorder,
tomorrow's searing hunger, sad ruin.
We need the tenderness of vision,
        courage not to look away, but
we turn aside instead, engaging only
        the tongue, no other muscle –

certainly not the heart – or we lift fingers
        only to rattle off some forked
bit of snark, eyes zeroed in on this
narrow slate of looking-glass more likely
        to cut to wound than to reflect
back any true thing or shatter the armor
        we hide beneath, suffocating.

We have done this to ourselves, made
        ourselves hungry and homeless
one sad, small bite at a time, taking our
good faith, draught by sweet draught,
        and souring it, poisoning our
water, our air, our very lifeblood with
        petty thievery, hushed vandalism.

May 26, 2020

Earth Rocks

Where is away? I'd like to know so
I can calculate how far it is from here –
or how close, as the case may be. 

Is it within throwing distance? A stone's
throw, perhaps? If I scrape two stones
together, do they become rubbish?

Rubble? What happens to the atoms
at the point of contact – points, to be
more exact? Are they relieved to be

released from such close quarters with
their fellows, free of the burdens of
integration within a single object?

Or do they retain some atomic memory
of past breaks with larger wholes, or
of flowing as rivers of molten mineral

before that? How far did they have to
travel to cool and harden into a mass
that passes for solid on a human scale?
   
And if Earth later brings seismic
pressure to bear to crack this pottery,
what is to be done? Shall we throw it

away, so much detritus to discard?
No. Earth trashes only the idea away.
All else is here, incalculably close.

May 25, 2020

Try, Try Again

That's all good and well, if you think you know
                                        what success looks like,
but this just looks like death by succession,
one pathetic moment after another.

It is worse than pointless, this metamorphosis
                                        to outright blood sacrifice.
We burned through the trust fund of aeons,
manic spendthrifts touting our own efficiency.

No doubt, we made short work of it, and this is
                                        what success looks like.
Now, submitting to wayward appetite grown
insatiable, some prehistoric infant reptile, found,

demands ever more and more as time progresses–
                                        redder and redder meat –
we have mortgaged our own futures and those
of our children, and their successors, if any,

to feed this beast. We have succeeded, indeed,
                                        in offering up our young
in our stead, not knowing our place or ourselves,
becoming usurpers of usufruct, lacking practice in

                                        perpetual success.

May 24, 2020

Chicken Scratch

Sometimes it doesn't work, this magic.
If it flies at all, ever – if I am not captive to serial

                                                               solitary

        illusion – still, it is grounded some days,
        just scratching the soil, a chicken
        scouring for grubs, dung beetles,
        earthworms, no soaring bird of prey
        scanning the pasture from a stately
        height in search of the errant mouse
        or the ill-placed killdeer clutch.

Perhaps it is just as well. This scratch work,
low and close, sometimes makes a solid magic,
   
                                                               yolk and all.

May 23, 2020

Revision

I see it again, or perhaps for the first time.
My eyes are rested, but it's the mind settled
out and down does it. Pieces that made no
sense – before – now cohere like twins in
one crib. But the cuter bits just look tired.
Cut them, release them to the wind as food
for the whippoorwills or for the necessary
aging – yours, theirs, or both; they will
return when – if – you need them. Nothing
is lost letting go. Thin, pare, prune. There.

May 22, 2020

Befriended

I have not yet made a friend of hunger,
but I feel the sense of it, look toward its edges
as to the horizon, know how the gentle nudge
brightens to a crisp line of insistence,
both inviting and impossible to grasp.

I should invite it in for tea – or just warm
water, perhaps – apologize for not keeping
enough space for its wildness. I will want
to say that I want to learn to cultivate some
wild, but that sounds like a contradiction

in terms, nonsense, so much empty talk. So I
simply sit, instead, and sip, casting furtive
sideways glances at my guest, who looks out
toward the horizon as if expecting the
silhouette of some feral stag to materialize,

ex nihilo, antlers sharp and black against
the flaming eastern sky. This would be a
strange friendship, I think, my mind still
chattering in its way, a practice of space
and silence. I scan the horizon for a sign.

May 21, 2020

Admission

I have paid not nearly enough

attention,
       even to the back of my hand.

Would I recognize it in a line-up?
I suspect I might get it wrong, mistake
it for the hand of another, a hand with
fewer dark marks surfacing like fish
in lazy water, meaty bottom-feeders
drawn slowly upward to eye the half-
moon – waning – heaving their bulk
to swallow the unwary night strider.

I am caught, empty-handed

and empty-minded,
       nothing to show for a lifetime

of looking away, or never looking
at all. These are the wages of

inattention,
       paid in hand and in full.

May 20, 2020

Biometrics

I measure my life in decades now,
but can't measure my know-how.

I know now I don't know how to
measure a life, mine or no, or Life, 

for that matter. A fitting measure
of Life, and a life, would be a thing 

to know, if I knew how to find it,
fit my life to it, and why it matters. 

Perhaps Life is its own measure:
what tends to Life is fitting. 

That would be some thing to know,
to measure what matters, and why.

May 19, 2020

Housekeeping

I set the cup aright.
Aside, it is not cup;
it does not cup.

Arrest yourself, dear.
Astir, you are not home;
you do not you.

Alight here.
Rest, and set the
world aright.

May 18, 2020

At the Hedgerow

A soft line
in space,
vibrating scent,

the margin of
this honeysuckle
petal, hazes

the air, traces
an edge
more delta

than razor,
spills welcome,
yet lives.

May 17, 2020

Heart's Mission

I hope this is still a rescue mission.
       But I don't know it is.
I know hearts beat, clocks tick, earth turns,
travels, hydrogen fuses into helium,
                                                       for now.

But now becomes then before
       you know it is.
By then, will hearts still beat?
Will we have spent all the fuel to
                                                       keep pace?

In that case, we will have been in recovery
       who knows how long,
without knowing it, which is to say,
without recovering anyone whose heart
                                                       once beat.

I let my own heart beat sense
       into me, rocking me awake,
as I rock my children, slowly, into sleep:
rescue the ground, for rescue it is,
                                                       for now.

May 16, 2020

For the Birds

Why "the birds" anyway?
Why should they conduct
the business no one
else wishes to suffer?
       
Are they any better
at reconciling bank
accounts or refraining
from another cookie?

When did they take
up making dinner
or paying the dentist
a semi-annual visit?

Do we imagine they
will just fly away,
wash their wings of
all this nonsense,

and travel south to
warmer climes to
sip mimosas and
lounge on the beach –

flocks of modern-day
scapegoats populating
the shoreline, all
fantasy, no sacrifice?

May 15, 2020

Of Oceans and Dance Practice

Perfection is not what we're making here,
                                                                 unless
a fitting assembly of imperfections
is what you mean. The assembly takes
                                                                 practice,

as do the various imperfect endeavors
                                                   themselves
and the various imperfect people who
practice them, those adventurers in the arts of
                                                   imperfection.

They are practiced seafarers, who know
                                      mastery
is not the aim but readiness and
attention to detail – how clouds and sails
                                      billow,

just so – or don't – what to do about it, and
                           when.
No one has time for perfection on the
open sea; something more nimble is
                           needed,

something more open to surprise and
             responsive
to the shifting demands of waters and sky,
less imposition of will than acceptance of an
             invitation

to practice dancing 'round the blue world.
   

May 14, 2020

Dance of the Bad Water Bug

I am only beginning to arrive in this place.
I have been skimming the surface, a water strider,
but a wretched one, always breaking the skinned
tension, dipping, tripping, dripping wet, when all
my kind are dry, expertly, above the water line.

I have no such expertise. I want to go below,
explore the depths – or just one, perhaps, with
the many it holds. I want to dwell a while – long
enough, at least, to become made of the stuff
of the place, my tissues consisting of its trace

minerals. It seems I was born too late for this.
My kin have thoroughly adapted themselves to
Life Above. I lack the instinct and anatomy for
this cooler, denser place, where sound and light
slow and bend, my tools ill-suited, my limbs and

lungs ill-formed. And yet . . . and yet . . .
This place feels like home, ancient and enduring,
outlasting all adaptations my kith have devised,
expertly, to escape its pressure. I have much
to learn. I study the habits of creatures who

returned here long ago, or never left. I have no
muscle memory, so I settle for muscle mimicry.
I will arrive by motion, fitting myself – perhaps
my kith and kind again – to this place, by taking
up the dance of masters in the arts of Life Below.

May 13, 2020

Progress, Lightning

In a time-lapse recording, you'd see
me slip north from the house to the barn,
then back again, several times a day.
I truck water for the goats, put them
out to pasture in the morning, and return
them to their stalls to feed and bed down
at dusk. The kids – the human ones – flit
and skirt about me like dragonflies out
for a joy ride, lighting, taking off again.
It is a pleasant cycle, more than a means
of passing time, building lives – a life –
over time. How should I record that? On
what time scale? Progress is slow, barely
perceptible, and yet somehow we slide
into rhythm as into a deep sleep, the kind
that restores strength and settles vision
into sense. We grow hale, supple, ready.

If the day brews a storm, the goat does will
call to go back inside early, and I will heed,
quickly and alone, under a roiling, turbid sky,
mounting to collapse, thunder bellowing from
the western edge of the county. To wait any
longer would be to court uncomely danger.
So I collect the tiny herd like gems and steal
them to shelter before lightning can arrest our
doings, blind the camera, halt the recording.

May 12, 2020

Unreasonable Expectations

Mine are.
They're overblown, fantastical, inflated, false.
They're untethered, groundless, rootless, bare.
They're hungry, with no language to name the
hunger, let alone satiate it. They know not No.

They know no boundaries, thus no decency.
They know no limits, thus no joy.
They're free, in the coarsest sense of the term.
They are terminally free, roving, degraded
and degrading, consuming and consuming

and consuming. They will not be governed,
not even by themselves. They cannot make
music, as music requires some modicum of
restraint, some momentary holding back,
some semblance of discipline and dignity.

This will not do. This is an untenable state
of affairs. It cannot go on. This does not
make for Life, but death only, and sooner
rather than later. What did we expect?
Too much.

May 11, 2020

Whatever It Is You're Going to Say

It has already been said. At least once,
probably thousands of times, or trillions,
often better. There is nothing new under the sun.

So the trick is not what to say but how.
How do you say "density" afresh?
¿Cómo se dice "compression"?
"folding"? "concentration"?
"condensation"?
"rain"?

Gravity has a way of making things
                                                smaller.

They tend to make more sense
                                                that way.

They fit together better
                                                over time.

That's the theory,
                                                anyway.

But in the meantime, there's a lot of
grinding. The plates get all tectonic
on us. Friction heats things up,
pressure mounts, seeks a
weak point, a valve,
a spout –

a mouth from which to
                                                 explode!

So gravity translates into
                                                 suspension,

for a moment, before the ash and embers

                                                  rain down,
                                                  dimming the sun,
                                                  cooling.

May 10, 2020

Canning Season

I'm in the market for a gramophone,
the old wind-up kind. Music in real time
is far superior, of course, but time is
short. And canned music, like canned
peaches, is better than no music at all.

Real time is marking itself, marching,
staging a comeback, scrawling its
signature on the wall. Can any still read?
Who will decipher the code? Who
will learn its notation, play its music?

When we've exhausted our stores,
run through our reserves, will we know
how to play in real time? Will we know
how to dance in the orchard? Who
will whittle a fife and whistle a tune?

There is much to learn, if we are to live –
to eat and dance and sing and play –
under the Sun, gathering its fruits and
making a music that mimics its waves,
its cycles, its rhythms, its seasons.

We need help, and gramophones. Time is
short. We must turn the crank, turn tables,
learn the songs to preserve ourselves,
hymns of praise and thanks for life under
the Sun, for music in real time – and beyond.

May 8, 2020

Chicken Blessing

A Prayer for Grace

I know I know far less than I need to.

I know my mother, when she was a child,

watched my grandmother, her mother,

butcher a live chicken, multiple times. 

My mother says her mother would hang

the bird on the clothesline, cut the head 

off, and the body would flop around the 

backyard for a bit – you know, like they say.

I'm sure it was not pleasant. I'm guessing 

that is why my grandmother, who knew 

how to butcher a live chicken and fry 

or roast it whole for Sunday dinner,

did not teach my mother to do so. But now . . . . 

Now I need to know details. 

What kind of blade did she use? 

How much water did she put in 

the pot for the scalding? 

How long did it take to pluck 

the feathers by hand?

What did she do with the offal – 

awful as it was – after gutting?

Did she compost it for use –

redemption and resurrection, that is – 

in Granddad's garden?

Who said grace over the Sunday dinner

of fried chicken, biscuits, and greens

wilted in bacon grease and tossed

with vinegar and a touch of sugar?

What words were used 

to bless the chicken?

What thoughts streaked through 

my grandmother's mind as she bowed

her head and prepared to receive 

the blessing of the chicken?

Did she peek at her nails to make sure

she had scrubbed all the blood out

from underneath them?

All of this is to say I know almost nothing

about the blessing of chicken, how to give

and how to receive. I know I know not

my blessings. Forgive my ignorance. 

Amen.

May 7, 2020

(Not) Talking Sense

Let's talk. No, actually, I take that back.
Let's not. Let's walk. Let's listen. Let's
savor. Let's sit and rock. Roundabout.
In and out. To and fro. Forth and back.

Again.

Stretch. Lean. Breathe. Pump.

See. How fast the sun hurls up and down
the sky, a mirage, entire. It is we who are
flung, hurled through space at speeds
we do not comprehend, and spinning.

Too.

Stretch. Lean. Breathe. Pump.

Hear. How clear the evening pulses,
the hum, the call, the song cresting,
falling, receding, gathering, rising –
an ocean of sound, and yearning.
    
More.

Stretch. Lean. Breathe. Pump.

Smell. How crisp is the lavendar's
welcome to those who aid its flourishing,
who taste its life waters and brighten
the palates of the living, and dying.

Also.

Stretch. Lean. Breathe. Pump.

Feel. How strong your heart beats, slows
on notice, a shy child hiding in skirts of
bone, but wishing to please, and to be
doted upon, loving, and longing.

As well.

Stretch. Lean. Breathe. Pump.

May 6, 2020

Moon Walk

Two-leggeds tucked in for the night,
teeth brushed, water sipped, foreheads kissed,
I take the four-leggeds for a turn around the
pasture, for relief – theirs and mine.
The sky clear, the moon near full, their
shadows, and mine, are strong as we make
the round, just one, circling the cedar in the
center of the pasture. It has a gravity of its
own, specific and scented, enough to slow
my step but weaker than the pull of sleep.
The dogs take off again for the house around
the two-thirds mark, knowing, as they do,
our orbit runs more elliptical than not. They
tangle in play on the return, trailing their
black shadows like comet tails, spending the
last of the day's fuel in cool, lunar glow.

May 5, 2020

Becoming Peripatetic

The secret is walking. All the greats do it,
all the way back to Aristotle and beyond.
It's a rule, a law the way gravity is a law:
if you want to think well, walk well – and long.

Walk alone or in company, walk the city
streets and the woods, if you can still find
them. Walk, observe, listen. Feel the way
your hips swing to loosen mind joints.

Notice, float, wander, converge. The one
who walks knows things other travelers do
not: how the wild rose colonizes this brush
pile and what makes for human distance.

It's about time, and scale. If you wish to
recover time, walk about. Its rhythms and
peaces are there for the taking, on the scale
of one who collects blueberries in a bucket.

Modestly, that is, and without rush – other
than the rush and pump of blood, rich with
oxygen to jazz the brain. Amble, rove, err
on the side of the road, or off of it entirely.

May 4, 2020

Moving (Laundry) Mountains

On the front end, you sort: lights,
darks, whites, delicates, towels, bedding.
On the back end, you sort: this kid,
that kid, this bathroom, that bed, socks.
You sort, you fold, you put away.
You sort, you fold, you put away.

But sometimes not. Sometimes all you
manage is the sorting, smoothing things
out just enough, layering piece upon piece,
to reduce the wrinkles – because it's never
a matter of elimination, not with laundry.
You sort, you smooth, you set aside.

You sort, you smooth, you set aside.
But then sometimes things get really bad,
and all you can manage is moving the
pile off the bed to the bedside table or
the dresser before you fall into sleep,
blessing Kenmore and the electric grid.

At least they're clean and not on the floor.
At least they're clean and not on the floor.
Your shoulders ache with the strain of some
load you can't remember, and the other
burdens pile up: the dishes, the dust,
the dogs. Bills with compound interest.

You'll try again tomorrow. You'll try,
again, to make some progress. You'll
think of Sisyphus and wonder whether
a laundromat would not have been a more
apt punishment for vanquishing Death.
You'll sort, you'll fold, you'll put away.

You'll sort, you'll fold, you'll put away.

May 3, 2020

Keeping Calm

Move. Move! Keep it goin', folks.
Keep it rollin'. Nothin' to see here,
ladies and gents. Move along.
Go on. Carry on. Keep calm.

I think I will, thank you. I believe
I will keep some of this calm. I'll
carry it in the palm of my hand like
an egg, keep it warm, nourishment.

I'll keep this calm the way some –
few – still keep the Sabbath. Holy.
I'll keep it wholly. I'll keep it
whole, a holy sacrament.

I'll keep it away from the train
wreck that cranes necks, the
mangled chain thrown off the
track headed nowhere anyway.

I'll keep this calm and go, go
somewhere green and cool
and quiet. I'll plant this calm,
or sit on it. And I will wait.

It will look as if I do nothing.
I will keep this calm, and look
the sinner, the sloth, the taker,
a threat – unproductive.

But this calm will grow,
within, beneath me. I will keep
it, carry it until it cracks open,
springing new life into a

wrecked world. This calm
will be something to see, ladies
and gents, something to stop
and witness, a holy spectacle.

May 2, 2020

A New Standard for Sight

Does 20/20 vision change? The measurement,
I mean. Do the keepers of the standard – whoever
they are – have to recalibrate it every so often?
If I see as clearly now, with as much crispness and
in as much detail, as "the average person" sees from
a twenty-foot remove, what happens if there is a
general decline in sight, if the average sags? If I can
still make out the individual leaves on this poplar
at twenty feet, while the rest of the world slides
into a Monet – not the worst of fates, I suppose –
is my vision improved? By the numbers, perhaps.
But take the opposite case: if, by some miracle
of chance, or by grace, the general populace came
into such sharpness of sight as to be able to detect
the veins of a single poplar leaf at that distance,
to catch the glint of a solitary dew drop as it beaded
and slipped to the leaf's elfin tip, or to glimpse its
fine exhale of renewed air, oxygen lilting out like
a whispered song – would my vision be the worse
for it? I think not. Or, if so, I'll take up painting.

May 1, 2020

Storm Drill

This is a test. This is only a test.
Testing, testing, one, two, three.
Tap, tap the mic. Testing. Is this
thing on? This is only a test.

Not the real deal, not the big
show, not the kids-strap-on-your-
bike-helmets-and-get-under-the-
mattress-in-the-shower-now! storm.

A test. Only a test. A drill.
Practice. A chance to build
muscle memory. Prepare.
Pare down in advance of the

siren that sounds against a
gunmetal gray sky, cocked,
churning, and dense, and not
this airy blue brightness.

The clouds of the coming
storm are seeded, laden,
burdened by abuse, hungry
for revenge against a ruinous

and ravaging people who
have never learned real hunger,
have never learned to feed
themselves, have never learned.

This is a test. This is only a test.
Who will heed the alarm? Who?
Who will learn to feed the
ground that feeds us all? Who?

Who will pass the test? You?

April 30, 2020

Devotee 

If you wish to learn devotion, observe
the broody hen. She is dedicated to the
business of bringing forth life, but not
just any life, and certainly not Life in
the abstract. No. She is compelled by an
ineffable urge, moved to stillness, drawn
out of and into herself at the self-same
time, by a force both mute and undeniable:
Sit here, on these eggs. Wait. Guard them
with your very life. Wait. Make yourself a
threat to any that would threaten these
lovely orbs. Wait. Hiss. Squeal. Screech,
if you must. Wait. Puff up at the intruder.
Leak a slow moan that says to the thief,
I have all the patience in the world, but
no acquaintance with reason whatsoever.

And thus she waits, a taut disciple of
instinct, a good and faithful servant of
life-force, unburdened by categories and
concepts and thus by anticipation or fear,
her reward warming, astir beneath her.

April 29, 2020

Management Style
 
I manage. Sometimes decently, sometimes barely.
Sometimes not at all. By some measures, I'm goin'
gangbusters all the time. Some would say I'm a
bust. Washed up. Busted. You managed to put up
a good front, kid. Sometimes it's all I can do to
manage the voices, cross-wise, at odds. It's odd.

I play referee to opposing teams, Switzerland to
openly declared adversaries, mediator between
rival camps in a hot war to claim territory in the
form of time and characterizations. I manage
to contain these multitudes – sometimes decently,
sometimes barely. Sometimes not at all. It's odd.

Are the odds even? Are they long? Are they safe?
Are there even odds, really? If I were a betting
woman, would I put money on me? Which me?
Odds are I've already placed my bets on myself,
my personal middle manager who somehow
manages to hold it together, chiefly by holding

hands with my wingman, seeking support from
the mothership, and taking counsel from those
who have walked ahead on the path of wisdom
and circled back bearing stronger light for the
journey to come. This is how I beat the odds.
Nothing odd about it. This is how I manage.

April 28, 2020

Occam's Advice

Some tool is needed, some device –
a weapon, perhaps, repurposed, alt-purposed.
This knot is wicked, indeed. Everyone is up
in arms, spouting theories in the conspiratorial
vein, conjectures that can never be proven
true because they can never be proven false,
yarns spun by the force of compelling
narrative, which holds no necessary
allegiance to the real or the actual, except
insofar as these elements render the narrative
more compelling still, by verisimilitude. The
very idea of verification has become veritably
laughable, to the great peril of all. We love
our stories, especially the fantastic ones –
the more other-worldly the better – and we
have not (yet) discerned the difference
between the story that giveth life
and the story that taketh life away.

Some tips for those aspiring to this discernment:
first, assume there is much you cannot know
personally; doubt yourself; make room for
uncertainty, let it take up residence on the futon
of your mind indefinitely, a permanent drop-out
from the school of the convinced; or better yet,
build it a granny suite, complete with kitchenette,
and drink your morning coffee on the porch
in its company, rocking wordlessly as you sit
together and watch the rising of the sun. Next,
develop an eye for simplicity, for clean lines
cut by a thin blade and open spaces exposed
to the lights of inquiry and investigation; hone
your taste for recipes with the fewest ingredients,
or at least the least complicated ones; collect a
set of knives, razor-edged, forged by the sweat
of expert blacksmiths, those who understand
the strength of the steel that slices the impossible
knot comes not from the tangled heart of the fire,
but from the cool quench, at last, in a barrel of water.

April 27, 2020

My Mother's Hands

Music eludes, infiltrates. It seeps through cracks
like the smell of warm coffee. It rises, wafts, lifts,
evanesces, and finally spirits away like so much
pollen or a flock of starlings, startled and swirling.

If I understand anything about music, it is that it
slips through fingers like water or air.  Not my
fingers, mind you. My fingers are dumb, clumsy
digits not well wired to my nerve center; thick.

But I've lived with music on tap, the faucet off
limits to me on account of my dumb hands, but
freely tapped at will, on a whim, or in search of
something like flight by skilled, masterful hands.

My mother's hands are works of art in their own
right, large and muscular, wingspanned for piano
octaves and landscaped with veins like the giant,
ancient river beds of Mars that ran strong and blue

before their waters ascended bodily into the heavens.
Did starlings once swirl over those waters? Did they
too ascend bodily, raptured with the waters of Mars
to sing in the chorus of the Music of the Spheres?    

  

April 26, 2020

Joanna the Baptist

I draw the line at bodies. Many things
will suffer neglect at my hands, appearances
mostly, and my own appearance in the main.
But if I have neglected a body in my care,
I have broken a holy bond, violated a sacred
vow, rent a hole in the wholecloth of my
very person. I am beside myself – Who is that?

Who does that? Not me. I am nearing the
time for sackcloth and ashes, for weeping
and gnashing of teeth. I am in need – need
of redemption, need of forgiveness, need of
a pencil or a sharp stick. I draw the line at
bodies. I draw a circle around the bodies
in my care, and say to those outside:

This far shalt thou come, and no further.

So if I, in this sanctuary, this circle of care,
if I, within this forcefield generated by –
and generating – the force of love, desecrate
a body by carelessness or callousness, I
desecrate the holy temple itself, Creation.
I am out of sorts and need to sort this out.
Put the house back in order. Mend. Heal.

Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.

April 25, 2020

Orientation

The house faces due east. It stands witness,
daily, to the surest thing there is aside from
men convincing themselves they're right,
all evidence to the contrary – or in the face
of no evidence at all, more commonly. I can
neither count the ways men lie to themselves,
nor count on them, on account of the lies posing
as knowledge. But I can count on the Sun.

The house is mostly mute, save for the
occasional creak here, scratch there, and the
soft, steady hum of the refrigerator. It knows
the better part of wisdom is silence. It knows
a store of cool silence is needed to buffer a
mother from the noises of children in the day,
joyous and welcome as they are, and also
from the unaccountable clamor of men's lies.

The former shall be abided, invited in fact,
nestled into this east-facing house that stores
just the right amount of silence for the job –
the work of sheltering the children from
the worst of men's arrogant fabrications, so
far as is possible. The morning sun pours
through the front windows, a powerful
disinfectant – and a silent one, blessedly.

Here, in and around this small, quiet house,
we can get our bearings. The children grow
strong, bearing witness to truths that fly below
men's radars, low-frequency miracles like the
rising of bread, the sprouting of potatoes, the
budding of the eldest cherry tree. We store
these miracles in the cool of memory, traces of
the warmth in a mother's heart at sunrise.

April 24, 2020

Questions for Father Abraham

How durable are we? How long
can we endure? Intelligible answers
depend on definitions and measurements,
of course. The relevant metric is time,
but in what units? Seconds? Minutes?
Generations? Millenia? Four score and
seven years? And these are human-made
units. How are they otherwise intelligible?
If you are a mayfly, how do you divide
your day, the single day in which your life
spans from one end to the other?
Perhaps, in that case, it is "you" that is
unintelligible, any "you" apart from
your kith and kin. "You" do not endure.
And yet, the mayfly persists.
But we are not mayflies. Definitions
matter. Rome was not built in a day.
Nor did it – did they, the Romans –
fall in a day. It took time, the undoing,
the unbuilding, generations to unravel
a delicate "we" – assuming it was not
a mirage to begin with, or worse, a
fiction of hindsight, the proposition
of historians only, glorious or garish or
ghastly, depending on the point of
view. But let us assume, arguendo,
some real-time "we," tenuous and frail,
tethered to the bodies of those within
the span of the Republic, the Empire,
by the thinnest of threads, the last fibers
of a severed umbilical cord. Did it endure?
Does it? In what was that "we" conceived?
Not Liberty. To what was that "we" dedicated?
Not the proposition that All Are Created
Equal. Surely not, right? That is the test
of our time, isn't it? But who are "we"?
Are "we" – We The People – up to the test?
Can "we" long endure? Time will tell,
though perhaps not intelligibly.

April 23, 2020

Playing the Market

Looking to diversify my portfolio,
I spread my seed packets across the
kitchen table and start to plan my
investments for a season of growth.

I take stock: tomatoes, of course, in
six varieties, the dividends of last
year's investments; likewise, peppers,
cucumbers, and basil are given; the green
beans did not perform well last season,
largely due to early losses to rabbits,
but we've put in control measures,
hedging our bets against that kind of bite;
the window for getting in on
carrots, beats, and spinach will close
soon, and they're new to my mix, so
they take priority over other offerings
right now.

Then, with garlic and onions already
taking off, and first-round potatoes
underway, I can have a little fun:
reinvest a small portion of last year's
sunflower yield and fund some bright
new annuals to attract partners in
pollination – those that venture from
bloom to bloom, spreading the wealth;
dabble in some new herbs – dill and chives
look promising – while broadening my base
of oregano, thyme, rosemary, and sage;
sow some summer melons and corn,
pumpkins for fall, and squash to store
through winter.

Futures are up.

April 22, 2020

Grounded: A Paradox

Pressure's on. Time to perform.
Time to make something happen.
Time to act a little god-like – or
is it like a little god? I don't quite
remember. I'm a little rusty in the
department of divinity these days,
at least insofar as it involves rapid
delivery of results and answers,
speedy deliverance from the
Unknown. Truth is, I never
quite got the hang of it, the
breakneck pace, that is, the
fast flight toward an End,
toward Resolution. My neck is still
very much intact, and though I donned
wings at some point – perhaps they
came with the donnish garb by which
I entered the circle of counselors 

at law – my feet have remained 

fastened to the earth, clods of clay, 

heavy with a viscous mix of
minerals, water, and microbial life.
Don't get me wrong: I understand its
value. I get the comfort and necessity
of a quick Conclusion, the neat tidiness
of reaching Closure with all deliberate
speed. This is what makes Action
possible. I take all of this as given,
and as good, for that matter, generally
speaking. But I also give quarter to the
notion that answers are, by necessity,
partial, and thus illusory, to a large extent.
I do not take the quarter as the whole, when
I cannot so much as say, "This is a quarter
of the answer you seek." That would
be silly, and I know better than to
act the silly demigod. Better to drop
the act and plod ahead, a humble
human wholly, my wings an ornament
of aspiration, both useful and useless.

April 21, 2020

Ocean or Mountains?

Neither, frankly. I don't need the drama.
The steady pulse of waves on shore would
be nice, but I have lots of pulses to steady
me here. Likewise, the vistas between rocks
that have clashed more recently than in my
region would likely take my breath away,
but I like my breath, thank you, and I
prefer the gentler view of rocks long
bedded down together, who settled their
scores ages ago and thereby grew a generous
blanket of soil that greens in the rain-sun
pulse of April, making their home here on
the westernmost edge of the Ozark Plateau.

April 20, 2020

In Dependence

Not since I was nine. That was the last
time I could see my way clear to anything
without the aid of a certain subset of
professionals who make seeing – its
science and technology, its hardware the
antidote to the softening lines in my field
of vision – their business. I am grateful,
of course, to have traded a very different
dependence for this one, but the way
I see it, it's all dependence. There's no way
around that. It all depends on how you
look at it: either you depend on the
technicians and their wizardry, dependent
as they are on a certain chain of supplies –
which is anything but certain but certainly
appears so – or you depend on someone
to take care of you and in such dependence
you accept a certain diminished capacity
to render care yourself, for yourself and
others. But even in the former case, you
are still dependent; there is simply the
illusion of its having vanished. It is slight
of hand; it is a magic trick – a useful one,
no doubt, but the least I can do is see it
for what it is, and myself for who I am.

April 19, 2020

Conductor's Leave

I've forgotten vigilance. I am too tired
to keep watch over all the unseen threats;
there are too many visible threats
to count, and that's not counting all the
normal, daily tasks – the dishes, the meals,
the laundry, the cleaning – that threaten
to throw me overboard if not tended.
I'd have a full-blown mutiny on my hands.

So I tend to them, but mostly by virtue
of momentum and not vigilantly or with
vigor. I am too tired for all that. Perhaps
I should rest a little. Perhaps I should prop
myself up, perhaps against a shade tree,
and give myself permission to succumb
to a little sleep. Perhaps that is a
necessary step on the road to freedom.

Perhaps I should, in fact, plan for it,
take it as given that rest is required on a
journey of this sort, where lives are at
stake, yes, but where you measure your
progress toward liberation in weeks
and months – or perhaps decades or
generations – and not in minutes or hours.
Perhaps a kind of Sabbath is in order.

That would indeed take some planning,
some elaborate contingency scheming,
to account for any sudden, undeniable urge
to stop –  which will be inevitable, mind you –
without risking the success of the whole
enterprise. We're in this for the long haul,
I remind myself, so take the rest you need
when you need it. Permission granted.

April 18, 2020

Business Model

I burned my tongue on too-hot tea.
That was yesterday, and today, it's
hard to enjoy my brew. I guess this
means I have something in common
with Icarus – although I'm not dead;
I have not yet drowned for erring on
the too-high side of things. It's only
harder to enjoy this steeped leaf-lift,
this liquid set of wings –
not impossible. It's annoying, yes, and
inconvenient, but still within the realm
of the conceivable – nay, more, the
probable, just clipped back slightly
for the time being. I still have my
tea, and it is still good, cooling now
beside me and darkening, swirling
with the life's work of a few dozen
bees. My life's work I take from
theirs, so I suppose the least I can
do is understand their business:
this visitation of lovely thing after
lovely thing, collecting, curating
sweetness for the queen and her
brood back home, all the while
trailing life-dust in your wake,
literally giving at the self-same
time that you take, leaving a
legacy of vitality, spreading out
and down, venturing far in the
way of abundance, but
never too close to the sun.

April 17, 2020

Eternal Arrival

It just came out of nowhere, he said,
this flash, this brilliance – and then . . .
it was gone again. Back to nowhere,
I guess. But where is that, exactly?
       
How do you know where nowhere is?
Is it, in fact? Is that not a contradiction
in terms? By definition, nowhere is not,
is it not? So you can't come out of it.

And you can't go back to it. There is
only now here. But even that is tricky:
When is now? You ask the question,
and then it is not-now; it is new-now.

As for here, where is that? Can't we
slice space into ever-smaller slivers, 
ad infinitum? Think on that: infinitely
small, that is, small without limits,

growing, if you can believe it, smaller
and smaller, but never reaching no-thing,
never crossing over to non-existence.
I am now here, she said. Blessed be.

April 16, 2020

Productivity: A Matter of Measurement

Yesterday, I walked two dogs, fed
three children two meals each (their
dad fed them one), and collected a
half dozen eggs from eight laying
hens who are fed twice daily.
Actually, there is a ninth laying hen,
a bantam, who is currently occupied
in the garage, hatching four full-sized
eggs. She is one week in to a
three-week stint. Her success rate
is yet to be determined, but she
is diligent about her work. That
reminds me: I need to candle those
eggs to see how they're developing.
That's on today's to-do list.

But I digress. Also, yesterday, I
put five goats on a fresh patch of
spring grass – six hundred, twenty-five
square feet to be exact. Tomorrow,
they will get a new patch of the same
size, so that works out to sixty-two
and one-half square feet of ground
per day per goat. I fed four bottles
of fortified milk to the baby goat
as well, and he got about eight hours
out on a patch of grass of his own.
I washed and dried two loads of
laundry, made two beds (never got
around to the third), and
drank two cups of strong, black tea.

I made half a dozen phone calls of
various duration, finished the day
one email shy of sending a full dozen –
although many more were needed –
and crafted one poem
of indeterminate quality. I did not
stop to count the number of sippy
cups of milk or juice I filled, the
number of hugs I shared with my
favorite pint-sized people, or the
number of giggles or squeals of
joy emanating from their vicinity.
Perhaps, today, I should expand
the scope of my awareness, to
measure even more of what matters.

April 15, 2020

Confession of a Number Cruncher

        For now we see through a glass darkly;
        but then face to face; now I know in part;
        but then shall I know even as also I am known.

                      1 Corinthians 13:12 (KJV)

It's all about the numbers, right?
The Dow, my BMI, your A1C,
the balance in my checking account,
the national debt, gross domestic
product, IQ, the death toll, the
infection rate, the cost of living.

I mean, it's all about metrics, right?
If you can't measure it, if you can't
put a number to it, if you can't
crunch it to see how it comes out,
it doesn't exist, does it? Does it?
Isn't that the bottom line?

Numbers are real, right? The
numbers don't lie, man. It's men
that do that. Does that mean men
are not real? If you lie, do you
count? Does a lie send you
reeling into oblivion?

I swear to tell the truth, the whole
truth, and nothing but the truth.
But in so swearing, I lie. I cannot
tell the whole truth. I cannot see
the whole truth. I cannot measure
it, or put a number to it.

Am I thus damned? Yes. I see
as through a glass darkly. I cannot
tell the whole truth, but only a
fraction of it, and I don't even
know which part of the fraction.
Now I know in part.

April 14, 2020

[Title Goes Here]
     
My derriere is in the chair.
I start to type. I type the date.
I type "Title Goes Here" –
bold and in brackets, which is,
maybe, just another way of saying,
cocky but not quite cocksure,
audacious but leaving ample
room to amble a bit, to meander
or even stumble my way to an
Ah-ha! or a Eureka!

It has to be this way. It is
the appointed hour, but that is
basically all I know at this
point. Some days, I arrive with
a germ, a seed, or a rocket
in hand, and my job is to let it
spread or grow or launch 
on its own terms. Other days,
my job is just to show up for
the appointment, start to turn
the crank, see what happens:

I muse. Or, I seek communion
with one or more muses. They
take pity, occasionally, and
condescend to commune with me,
a poor wanderer, a rough-cut
way-farer, who fares in her own way –
that is, in fair-to-middlin' fashion –
but who knows, at least,
how to show up for a daily
appointment with discovery.

April 13, 2020

Worthwhile

What is the worth of my while?
Will I spend my while meanly?
Could it be said, "And it came
to pass that all the while she spent
in meanness" – that is, in averages
and half measures? That hardly
seems worth the while. If I am
going to while away the time,
shouldn't I do it wholly, so that
it cannot be said, "Meanwhile,
her children grew up, and her
husband grew old, and she knew
them not"? I do not wish to
merely pass the time, not while
there are whole worlds worth
knowing under my own roof,
entire stretches of time, just beyond
my front porch, for stretching both
time and our limbs, for holding hands
and walking across the pasture to
check the apple trees together, or
stopping to hold our breath at the
pond at dusk, listening while the
frogs croak. Do I really wish to
miss this? I do not. But will I?
Will I pass before learning
my while is beyond price? 

April 12, 2020

One Way to Celebrate Easter

If I were feeling surly, or if a sudden fit of
pragmatism overtook me, I could tell my kids
to go hunt for all the broken eggshells in the
compost pile. If I wanted to put those shells to
more immediate use, and if I were feeling now
more imaginative or magnanimous, I could
convince the kids to collect them by the bowlful,
as if they were seashells – I could say, "Just
pretend we're on a beach vacation. Here, use
these old sour cream tubs." And I'd send them
down to the compost pile, each with a makeshift
basket in hand. We're making do around here.
They wouldn't have to pick through much to
fill their bowls, just onion skins mostly, and
coffee grounds – lots of coffee grounds – and
banana peels. The pile is basically all the food
scraps I did not see fit to feed directly to the
chickens, heaped on the shriveled carcasses of
last year's tomato plants. Actually, the tomato
plants from the year before that are down there
too, but they've broken down by now into loamy
stuff fit for feeding new plants, eventually. I'll
get to that, eventually. But for now, it won't
take the kids long to make a haul. They'd be
back up at the house in a jiffy – that is, if
they don't get into the compost equivalent of
a food fight out there – and we'd lightly brush
or rinse the loot while the oven heats up.
Over our stash of brown and pink and white
and blue detritus, I'd explain to them that these
shells will help our hens make even better eggs
for us to hunt each evening, replenishing their
stores of calcium so they can continue feeding
us, so they can continue making our lives
possible with the dozens of possible lives they
create week in and week out. We'd spread the
shell halves on a cookie sheet, then dry and
harden them in the hot oven for twenty or so
minutes. We'd let them cool, then put them in
a plastic bag, and I'd tell the kids, "Now, this is
the fun part," and I'd let them take turns
pounding the shells into finer stuff, not quite
dust, but getting there. Then, at evening chores,
I'd have each child sprinkle some of the shell
bits, like holy water, into the chickens' food,
and we'd say grace over the meal, giving thanks
for their sacrifice and the gift of continued life.

April 11, 2020

Call to Account

I feel out of my element and out of my league –
the league of the generous, that is, the comrades
with open arms, who trade in abundance and
traffic in the strength borne of seeking truth
while knowing most anwers will elude us.
I wander, lost among people who demand
certain solutions and crave comfort at any
expense, as long as they don't have to account
for it – and there is certainly no accounting
for it, no reckoning the cost of their ease.

Truth be told, I'm not all that good at it
myself, this reckoning, and this dwelling
with uncertainty. I aspire to it, and I long
for the fellowship of fellow aspirants,
those breathing the generous air of a truth
that never quite settles enough to contain,
not in a box or book or ledger or in any
other fixed vessel, a disquieting truth that
calls us to account, that insists, gently but
firmly, that we reckon the cost of our ease.

April 10, 2020

Motion Studies: Theory and Practice 

In theory, I am responsible. In theory,
I am able to respond. In theory. It's as if
I have the potential to respond, like I'm
an upright jar of pickles on the edge of
the countertop, hanging over just a little –
they say I have potential energy. It's just
that someone or something has to come
along and put me in motion, so that my
potential energy becomes kinetic energy.

In practice, I am not so sure. In practice,
I respond the best I can, the best I know
as of right now. In practice, I'm driven to
kinesis, to action, by conflicting forces –
by fear sometimes, other times by love.
Sometimes it's just sheer inertia, brute
momentum, that keeps me going: my
body in motion tends to stay in motion
unless acted upon by an outside force.

That doesn't feel very responsible, to be
honest. It is perhaps unavoidable, yes, this
"acted upon" business – one force over-
powering another to change my direction
on a given day, my speed in a given hour.
But is this the extent of it? Am I limited
to responding so mechanically to these
forces? I wonder. I wonder, so I practice.
I put myself in motion as best I am able.