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.