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?