Firefly

Let's just get one thing straight here:
I don't know what I'm doing. Never
have. Just wingin' it, blinkin' my way
in the night, a firefly, lit and longing
for bliss and home and something I
can't … quite … put antennae on. A
spark hiccupped here, blip there amid
foxglove petals demure in their cast,
I intermit lumens in the search for—
for what? I haven't the foggiest clue.
But I am compelled, drawn, pulled
into this silent dance that echoes the
stars, somehow passes ancient chips
of flame off to new bearers of light.

 To the Osage Mother

Who foraged these Ozark woods before . . .

Whose daughters and sons learned the quiet,
                the stillness of the deer hunt, on pain
                of hunger, pang of feast forfeited to
                a wayward footfall in the wee hours;

Whose brothers and husbands could wield
                bone needle as well as she, threaded
                with sinew for wedding hides tanned

                for winter shelter and summer shade;

Whose own mother grew impatient with age
                with any careless weave of a willow
                basket, so gathered shoots in shallows
                and tutored fresh-fingered children;

Whose father felt the freedom of this place
                long before . . . foreign talk of it rang
                hollow, dividing, subdividing the land
                into parcels, taking without knowing;
    
I long to ask you questions,

                but where can I find you now?

I wish to dwell with your wisdom,
                but how to resurrect it?

 
If I dance beside this spring,
                will your spirit seep forth truth— 

                strike me dumb and instruct?

 I Strip the Sheets Again

Again. Third time this week
the Pull-Up just hasn't held up.
My baby just turned five; five
years out, he won't be making
midnight trips to my bed. So.

Ode to Stella

Oh, thou Blessed Ruminant,
sweet, doe-eyed alchemist of the field,
turning green light to liquid gold,
may you find joy in your labors,
comfort as you welcome the orphan,
and long days making peace on the land.
Thou art prize and pride, Gaia's gift to
Herself, Mother of Mothers, love bovine.

 

 

Satellite Search

We've taught the kids to spot satellites.
Circled around the small campfire that
plays host to supper – beans, burgers,
and a pan of cast-iron fried potatoes –
we tilt our heads back, dial ourselves
to panoramic view. The little ones take
time to adjust, squirming on our laps,
chatting away as if the whole canopy
of open night were not blinking down
on us. Slowly, they settle, heads to our
chests. We tally planes, trace to Polaris,
and watch for that unnaturally steady
speck, that tiny bead arrowing across
flecked black, interloper extraordinaire.

Prophesy

Once, the world was a sacred abode.
It shall be so again. We shall lay hands
                                                    on our home.

Spirit shall return to the mountains.
We shall bow in awe, give thanks and praise

                                                    for this, our gift.

We shall carry the holy fire
with all the humility of the noblest stewards.

We shall forsake dead knowledge for
knowledge that death gives way to life
                                                    again and again.

Our bones shall partake of the wonder 

of return to the circle of care, of coming home.

Everyday
a way
to play,
I say.
Today,
sure, pay
your way—
but stay,
I say.
Tomorrow's fray,
a sure melee,
may
relay
a ray
of sun. So stay,
I say,
to play,
I say.
Dally not, nor delay,
to flay
your fears and slay
your dragons. Betray
not your mortal clay.
Stay,
I say,
today, 

to play.

If Blades of Grass Were Dollars

I'd be a millionaire, a billionaire maybe.
Just look at all that green. God, it's gorgeous
out there, working its magic: sun to sugar,
with some oxygen to boot, for good measure.
Short on cash, we labor-cost-averaged our
way to this wealth, trailing a modest flock
of egg-laying chickens across this pasture
behind a tiny dairy goat herd. Snailing our
way, twenty-five feet at a time for two years,
we—they—fed the soil even as it fed them—
and us. Now, this green, this rich, verdant
mass of stored sunshine, is our return. Birds
and beasts are back to feast, and to feed their
ground again. Is there no end to this bounty?

 

Residual Radiation

It's not just the static on your TV screen.
We're all residual radiation from the Big Bang.
Are you kidding me? Have you not seen my
son's face, his five-year-old face, flushed with
exuberance from a puddle of last night's rain?
Spinning and splashing, he veritably throbs
the ancient power and light of the universe,
emanates the energy of the ages making its
residence, now, in his small, muscled frame.
Existence is nothing but pulsing play of light
and heat. To be is to be at home in Creation,
where nowhere fails to exude the original fire.
Let this be a sign unto you: your heart beats,
bangs out the echo of beginning without end.

Soundscape, From the Porch

Where I close my eyes, let the sounds be
as they are, the robin's morning melody
stealing among the cacophonous pillars
of industry—a rattling coal train, jake
brakes of a diesel truck reporting like a
firearm for duty, a prop plane buzzing
back from a fungicide mission in a field
in the south of the county—like a child
playing hide and seek among pillars of
Roman catacombs. I've heard the rumor,
the one where life persists despite all
this death, where death of this sort plays
itself out, exhausts its ammunition, gives 

way to joyous polyphony, song and dance. 

The Girl with the Sea Turtle Tattoo

I don't even like the sea, except it harbors
                                                            old souls,
and I am nothing if not an old soul, creaking
and ill-adapted to the pace on land of late. So
in my mind, and at the small of my back, 

                                                            a sea turtle

buoys me to a current that is more my speed,
                                                            far out in
Oceania, far beyond the outermost reaches
of where most would be willing to go. Out
here, I am as old as I am, swimming among

                                                            the elders,

riding a river of waters upon waters,
                                                            caught up,
for once, at last, in a joyous flow not of my
own making, a gift of the ages for the aged. I
find my people here. We respect distance
                                                            and commune.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

There are things to be afraid of, certainly.
I am not among them.

Yes, evil spirits that go bump in the night –
I have known them; I am not among them.

No one needs be afraid of me but me –
indeed, I was, for I carried the monsters

within me, too quietly and for too long.
I am not among them.

I am not, nor ever was, a monster.

Nor are you. You are not among them,

though you carry them with you, have
done so, too quietly and for too long.

Live! Fear them not. Stare them down.
Let them go. You are not among them.

POV: A Vulture on Culture

What is it with "high noon"? I mean,
I get the position of the sun and all, and I
can see how, in a time before many carried
time in their pockets, it might have been
useful: no need to build consensus as to
the appointed hour, at least among the
sighted, and on a clear day more or less.
One less variable to verify, I guess, in a
world where all that was required to kill
a man in the street at high noon was to
verify one's own slight-borne rage. Is that
Hollywood exaggeration – or sanitation?
In either case, it seems, snowflakes fall at 

high-noon too, under clear or cloudy skies.

The Next Morning, I Put on National Geographic

And Learn

The base of a seaweed plant is called the "holdfast".
That's nice – a kind of anchor to thoughts scattered
by a rum cake bender without the cake, a thousand-
piece puzzle bulldozed with only the lighthouse in the
upper left corner yet to assemble, a slip turned operatic
in its decrescendo. I pop an olive, consolation prize for
the Bloody Mary I really want, macaroni boiling on the
stovetop, to douse – drown? – the fire and restart the
countdown to New Day One. The timing is bad. (Is it
ever good?) It is Carnival, after all, and Bananas Foster
wail a siren's song from somewhere in my artist's brain.
But I hold fast, stir alphabet soup, turn grilled cheese.

Absolute zero, granted,
paradox or no.
But not absolute silence –
banished by movement.

Being bustles, whether calm
or calamitous, quiet
or quaking with raucous rage.
Existence will sound.

Peach

Get out of your head, onto your feet.
It is muscle memory needs built; taut
syllogism yields us precisely nothing.
Mere talk of u-turns won't turn you
around. It takes more neurons firing,
further down. Let your body issue
orders, for once. Drop to your knees,
sink your hands in soil, and let the
sweet rot of life from death tell you
what to do next. Submit. Un-know.
This is your shot: rewire from below.
Rescue your near-severed head from
the oblivion that awaits its untethered
ascent. Here is a peach. Take, and eat.

Of the Essence

She swings. I don't stop her or hold her back.
Well, I do. I tell her to come in for dinner or
                                                    fraction practice.

Or I ask her to load the dishwasher and run it,
before she runs back outside to swing.

So, she does. She does not balk. "Yes, Mama,"
                                                    she says, and

like a reverse conjuring, I am out of her hair,
out of her brainspace. I want her to have space,
the gift of space, physical and emotional space.
                                                    And time. She is

nine, now. Her time—now—is of the essence.
Hours and hours she clocks in the clean air,
                                                    rocking to and fro.

Cloud Talk

Behold the small frame,
earthbound until recently,
now soars above us.

Mineral-fueled, they
look down on our topmost crowns.
Do they scorn our shield?

We cannot yet tell
what – whether – flight will teach them.
Icarus, or no?

Let us hope they learn
to live as green things live, to
fuel by sunborne light.

We will bear witness,
as we bear them shade, water,
our ancient trade, trust.

Oak Sonnet

The tall oak on the back side of the pond,

where the overflow spills down the hill
after many a spring rain, she says it's not
only possible but lovely – and thus right –
to do both: to root deeply and to become
intimately acquainted with the running of
waters and the many tempers of the winds.
Mild or malevolent, she says, the winds
and the rains will teach you to dance, to let
your limbs and your hair wheel and wave,
lilt and lift, even as your ties to the earth
grow stronger, and your ministrations of
the miracle of turning light into food bless
a wider and deeper circle of lively friends.

Overheard in the Lower Pasture

The talk I want to hear –
            the chatter, the hum, the buzz –
is talk for which I need instruments
and a translator. Oh, and time.

                                                        Time
is indispensable if you wish to catch
a snippet of conversation between
fescue roots and the passing nightcrawler,
tunneling her way beneath the greening pasture,
            pulsing with the pressures of April.

Do they have what they need? If I lay
                                                        very still
on this dew-drenched patch of ground,
and merely cup my ear to earth, will I
make out anything, anything at all? And
even if so, how will I know what to do?

How will I know what is expected of me?
How will I know how to help?

*

Shhh. Too many words, too much noise.
                                                        Stop.
                                                        Just stop.
If you wish to overhear, dial back
the overthinking and the overdoing.
            Swim in the soil's sound and sway. That's it.
                                                        That's it.

It is not shattering I fear,
                    but the hairline crack,

not the sudden, unmistakable sundering

                    of once neighborly molecules –

shards, chunks, loosed dust, an intact handle,
                    swept up and summarily disposed of –

of what was once mere clay, before the potter
                    took it into his head

to turn mud into mug, like water into wine,
                    an earthen chalise fit to

fuel the firing of synapses, a bearer
                    of that most industrious of molecules.

I once had a mug with the chemical formula

                    for caffeine printed on the outside.

I don't recall, now, what happened to that one –
                    purged, I suppose, in one of many

attempts to manage the accumulation
                    of household surpluses, the blight

of late capitalism – itself fueled, in no small part,
                    by that most industrious of molecules.

No, the irony does not escape me . . .
                    but I fear one day it might,

leaking out through a hairline crack –
                    or perhaps many –

harbinger of a slow sundering of the neighborly
                    synapses of my brain, and this

despite that most industrious of molecules. 

                    Or because of it.