{"id":5534,"date":"2017-03-16T13:11:04","date_gmt":"2017-03-16T13:11:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/?p=5534"},"modified":"2023-07-08T10:19:41","modified_gmt":"2023-07-08T10:19:41","slug":"the-impossible-mesa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/posts\/the-impossible-mesa\/","title":{"rendered":"The Impossible Mesa"},"content":{"rendered":"

EPIGRAPHS<\/h2>\n
\r\nYes, and I ain't saying you ain't pretty \r\nAll I'm saying is I'm not ready \r\nFor any person place or thing \r\nTo try and pull the reins in on me \r\n~~Mike Nesmith, Different Drum \r\n\r\nUnfaith in aught is want of faith in all. \r\nIt is the little rift within the lute, \r\nThat by and by will make the music mute.... \r\n~~Tennyson, Merlin and Vivian \r\n\r\nThe first harp came from an empty turtle.\r\n~~Robert Bly, Meditations on the Insatiable Soul\r\n\r\nFor I am made of stardust, and it hurts. \r\n~~Jennifer E. Stahl\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
\nDimming the Lights
\n<\/h2>\n

\nThe Western World is giving up its heights, but its long unspoken depths are not so easily put aside….
\n<\/em><\/p>\n
\nThe grandness of day and civilization recede.  We are in the twilight of the gods, now, reentering realms discarded since The Church was the sole authority on science.  Unprepared for the transition, but having thoroughly abandoned reasoned discourse, empirical methodology, and the idealism of Enlightenment systems, we glare into our subconscious with iPhone flashlights–and the litter is a mash of ancient rites and yesterday’s emails that we are wholly unprepared to untangle.\n<\/p>\n
\nWe have an incompetence in living with our unconscious depths that will not be easily shaken.  Our politics proscribe forms of wrong behavior, (and prescribe forms of right behavior) without any comprehension, or any attempt to comprehend, the breadth of human experience.  Each side races to shrink hosannas and tragedies into some rigid public liturgy;  any deviance in individual recital is seen as disobedience to the herd norm.  Yet these litmus tests are so narrow and empty they cannot encompass the brainwaves of an amoeba, let alone the million prismatic instances of genius and peril that constitute just a single human life.\n<\/p>\n
\nThese are atrocious generalizations, but I feel in desperate need of a map, any map– and what greater generalizations are there than a map’s North, South, East and West?  These poems begin to reclaim the dark of sleep, the deeps of unconscious material, for the use of individual guidance toward meaning and action in the broader world.  When the buildings have gone down in flames, when the roads are empty, and traffic cops are pointing everywhichway with the feverish inconsistency of spinning tops…well, one must do what one can to re-establish an inner order that hugs the whole of one’s experience.  The inertia of dreams is a good place to begin because they go back in time and temperament to the earliest human societies and circumstances.  Dreams can provide a kind of inertial guidance system for the burnt-out modernist–anyone suspicious of the narrow “naked truths” on display in every shopfront, on every blogpost, every idiot bumper-sticker slamming its brakes in front of us.\n<\/p>\n
\nIn our private dark–sleeping, dreaming–we may still find a way to put our faces toward the dimming light.\n<\/p>\n
\r\nGregg Glory\r\nNovember 25, 2015\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nPOEMS\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
\nThese Words Are On Fire
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nThese words are on fire--on fire in you-- \r\nOn fire really, literally, not like in a story \r\nOr some metaphor for life, but really burning \r\nIn the sugars of your brain; in the caloric heat \r\nOf your expressive breath, too, these words \r\nAre on fire, exhaling my ontological being \r\nLike bones thrown on a campfire, scraps \r\nThat flare in the conflagration of your night,\r\nThe fire alarm that is your life today \r\nClanging and busy with every human misery \r\nAnd mystery, every human thing that you are. \r\nYour thoughts scatter and leap in sparks,\r\nEngulfing your neighbors and lovers and children \r\nIn the emergency that is your life. \r\nAnd into this conflagration, this catastrophe, \r\nWord by careful word, you have thrown me. \r\nTaste my happy ashes on your lips.\r\n<\/pre>\n
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 <\/p>\n
\n*** FINDING A LIFE RAFT ***
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
\nA Wash of Light
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nA wash of light soaks through the frozen-over windshield:\r\nIt's enough to write poetry by while the car warms.\r\nGrievances, violences. My mind is full of angry violins\r\n--Scratching attacks, mad growls of tones.\r\n\r\nFingers warm, my speedy breathing disappears\r\nInto the general heat of the moist, closed-in space, writing....\r\nThe sun resembles a snowball through the cloudy windshield, \r\nA cold headlight coming on through incomplete dawn. \r\n\r\nLast night was here so recently!  Lying straightened in bed, \r\nFeathers of darkness fell all along the asphalt shingles above my body.... \r\nAs I write, a baby's aggrieved cry becomes an inaudible coo, \r\nAn old man's life-grief moults into acceptance....  \r\n\r\nWe come to welcome the sleek black of our scuffed coffin\r\nThe way we'd welcome an unexpected wedding guest\r\nWho shows up late and anxious, pigeon-toed at that,\r\nBut all dressed up and ready in his rented tux.  \r\n<\/pre>\n
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\nLooks in a Dying Eye
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nDark veins open, and a shadow goes forth over whiteness, \r\nAn eel moving out of its cave over clouds of coral; \r\nSea winds sound in the ears of shoals of living fish; \r\nNo air, and no rowing home to shore ever again.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\nScanning Headlines for Mercy
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nThe needles of terrorists' bullets are burrs on our eyes.\r\nBlind with pain, we slap our heads frenetically.\r\nWe lodge the bullets deeper with curses repetitious as prayer.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
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\nA Bone Horn
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nMarrowless, this black-ringed femur, \r\nRigged to blow one resounding note forever \r\nCrowing the winner's standing exultation\r\n...Lies where Indians left it on their mountain.   \r\n  \r\nAround the long horn unburied by rain, a few pines  \r\nGather, dark mourners on a ring of bland rocks. \r\nA low wind shrugs through heavy serapes. \r\n  \r\nI pick up the tarnished roadside bone, delicately wipe \r\nParticles of dirt until it gleams in my bare hand-- \r\nA tube now only, without meaning, \r\nA dead white weight of death and silence.\r\n<\/pre>\n
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\nHolding Onto Grief with Both Hands
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nWho was the one I was grieving for today?\r\nI went to the mountain forest to find the body. \r\nI walked straight up those hills until it was night, \r\nHeld a candle over my head in the dark and wept. \r\nI followed that river down out of the mountains \r\nWhere valley slopes slow like white flocks landing.... \r\nWith both hands, I held to the earth for my only comfort, \r\nAnd the wind there whispered: \"Nothing is saved.\"\r\n<\/pre>\n
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\nFeathers
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nThe graveyard air is faultless--clear \r\nWhite stars shine through it, crisp sandgrains \r\nStill wet with huge intimacies of the sea. \r\nWave after feathery wave, they sift loose shyly....  \r\n\r\nMy dead live here, talking in their sand house \r\nUnder the groundhog's old mossy hole. \r\nOak roots knuckle outward, sheltering the soft door.\r\n\r\nTheir voices are light as paper shifting in darkness. \r\n\r\nFor a long time I stand still as a star--I listen \r\nAs if the dead were delicate, held in a child's palm, \r\nLips parted with curiosity, a feather. \r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\nA Tree Fallen Into Water
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nI walk straight out along the fallen trunk still solid \r\nWith the life that had left it years ago, before I was even born. \r\nI put my arms out for balance, walking down toward the calm water \r\nAnd then over it, my bare feet feeling the hard beaks of bark ridges\r\n       that run like seams down an old man's face. \r\n\r\nWhere water touches the long trunk, some gets sucked \r\nInto open seams, like an eyedropper preparing its dose. \r\n\r\nSmaller branches radiate smoothly out from the main body\r\nAs if to keep the fallen tree's balance over dark water. \r\nThere's a charge, a power in the water, like the cold potential of snow,\r\nThat touches my face when a breeze wrinkles it.\r\n\r\nKneeling down to drink, I see those branches that reach below the clear \r\nSurface of the black reservoir are slick with green algae, green moss.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\nThe Sense of Defeat
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nThe field mouse with berrylike eyes has bedded down \r\nFor the day.  Carefully placed leaves cradle \r\nEars that could be flooded by an eyedropper. \r\nWhat music is small enough to entertain his dreams? \r\n\r\nFor years I've watched the same great tree in the yard \r\nDivide and subdivide its massive wheel of roots until \r\nEven tiny blossoms can bend it down in spring. \r\n\r\nWhat is greatness or smallness in living things? \r\nA single match can burn down an entire house! \r\n\r\nSurely there's that which I desire as the tree desires the sky, \r\nAs the mouse desires his contented littleness in his hole. \r\nWhat, besides friendship, and a few things more?\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\nThe Unseen Quarry
\n<\/h2>\n

\n“the mountain seemed… raw materials of a planet dropped from some unseen quarry”~~Thoreau
\n<\/em><\/p>\n
   \r\n1. \r\nThe mountain pinnacle has seashells in it. \r\nThe climber's powdery hand touches once-living swirls. \r\nWith his feet on the old ocean floor a mile underwater\r\nHe sees a hundred miles of our world easily. \r\n\r\n2. \r\nPeering with a glass-bottomed bucket along the shore, \r\nA child sees his bare feet touching mountain snow. \r\nThe snow is soft and warm as in his dreams. \r\nSmall tinselfish swim between his naked legs above the snow. \r\nFor the moment everything seems calm and clear.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\nTo
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nLie down in the soft \u2018no' of the snow forever.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\nTwo Small Poems on My Shadow
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nMy shadow leaves trails of smoulderings... \r\nWherever light has fallen through me \r\nFocused by my magnifying glass. \r\n\r\n.   .   .   . \r\n\r\nWhen sundown comes yawning its shadows...\r\nWhen I and the tree and the grass-crested hill are one... \r\nIt's just my shadow waking up to dream.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
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\nThursdays Mostly
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nA man who is suffering invites friends over. \r\nA small bottle of rum sits dark as a pupil \r\nIn the green felt circle of his poker table. \r\nKings and queens are taken up and put down in silence. \r\n\r\nThe men might be sleeping under straw hats, \r\nBobbers nodding unnoticed between bare, rough feet. \r\n\r\nDark summer blows in through a window....\r\nAnd the men hear the night train passing \r\nWith a sound of jail doors sliding shut \r\nOn row after row of the condemned.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
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\nSeasons of Men
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nEach day men drink the rich griefs of their lives \r\nSilently after work--each word widowed \r\nIn the half-light, winnowed in elbowed bars \r\nCrowded with the grunts and hups of football. \r\n\r\nOther men, ones with the delicate balance \r\nOf rarefied ballet dancers, make parabolas  \r\nExplode at half-field--one extended finger enough \r\nTo call the drilled ball down from heaven.... \r\n\r\nEnough to hold the pigskin seed in the belly \r\nAnd feel beaten men fall all about and upon you \r\nHeavily as grain-sacks. Enough to know they're defeated, \r\nThat you and the grass and the held seed have won.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
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\nThe Way Back
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nShe bent around the fender, low, \r\nFilling her eyes with the injured wing--\r\nSnap and struggle;  slow, then slower... \r\nHer eyes all tears and shining. \r\n\r\nI stood quiet beside her, knocked \r\nA slender Pall Mall from the pack--\r\nSilent till the burning reached a knuckle, \r\nThe hum of the engine gone slack: \r\n\r\n\"The sun's getting gone, dear.\"\r\nHer shoulders tightened at that. \r\nShe folded herself back in the car \r\nAnd we drove that way all the way back.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\nWaking Up Screaming
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nWe wake, pulled by our hairs into the light, screaming. \r\nEvery one of our hairs is standing up and screaming! \r\nThe dream we had loved is dead, but we are alive....\r\nHair roots, curled in their dark, hear muted echoes \r\nOf the never-ending grief daylight brings us. \r\n\r\nAll day, dreams without a dreamer run loose. \r\nIn brain dark, in mind dark, uncut thoughts \r\nGrow shaggy and obscene. Thoughts wrestle \r\nInside us, hairy bears fierce and dark.  Hairy hands \r\nWith long yellow nails smack the dream belly.... \r\n\r\nWhen we rejoin our dreams, lying back in the spitting vat, \r\nThey scream all night, jungle parrots nobody hears.\r\nWe ourselves are deaf to them, to the dark \r\nMagnetic thoughts, the inner things we think \r\nWhile our eyes rest and our hair is pulled inward, \r\nReverse lightning folded back time-lapse into earth-black \r\nClouds;  the brain, heavy and hairy, raw as a blind potato.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
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\nThe Getaway
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nAll day it was night inside me.  I was a shuttered \r\nBuilding, my sides afternoon red, with only \r\nFlash touches of deep night showing \r\nIn windows--black eyes turning shyly away \r\nThat had been bold the night before.... \r\n                                        And then \r\nNight arrives: night from under eaves falls\r\nCold into cornfields: my hidden self\r\nRides out into it: escaped darks everywhere\r\nCut only by squares of window-light....\r\nQuiescent grass is laid open by pallet knives \r\nOf yellow pigment like a tire skid--fugitive lights\r\nNow the loud car of day has made its getaway.\r\n<\/pre>\n
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\nWhite Beak of the Moon
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nI wake at midnight. \r\nThere, through the dim window, is the \r\nFiery haunch of the moon! \r\n\r\nThe window was black before the moon came by,\r\nMy thoughts buried in busy sleep. \r\nAnd now, in moonlight, I see \r\nA bird asleep in the juniper nearby, its white beak \r\nUnder its wing, fierce songs under freezing feathers, \r\nEach feather dipped in the moon's ladled mercury. \r\n\r\nWhat are days that they become nights such as this? \r\nAlready the answer is eating up the question.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
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\nRolling Over at 3am
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nThe moon--unstrange, unexpected, intrudes. \r\nThere are no clouds.  Just a few \r\nIndistinct corners of dusty wisp lit up \r\nBy the moon's nude bluish flashlight. \r\n\r\nI have chronicled my life\r\nWith the moon's comings and goings,\r\nWhich everyone can see for themselves!\r\nI can't even see to swim in this rivery darkness!\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
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\nHoles in the Life Raft
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nMist hovers on the night lake like a life raft. \r\nBlue urgencies of the afternoon have faded, \r\nPewter shades flatten the world to a picture. \r\n\r\nOnshore, my shadow and I play tag by moonlight, \r\nChalky figures in a dim Rembrandt rendition. \r\nWe touch first at one foot then the other: this foot, that foot, \r\nThen chase along the unchurned rim sand, water lapping, \r\nThen just hands touch as I cartwheel once--\r\n\r\nCan't take this mortal coil too seriously \r\nWhile cranberry wine stays so cheap! \r\n\r\nMeanwhile, out on the lake,\r\nHoles in the life raft appear and close without sound.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
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\nThe Fractured Paths
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nTime has gone on for so long, I no longer know what to think! \r\nAngry drums of the car wheels flatten to shreds; \r\nA jaybird crouching in his hovel of branches \r\nCracks a nattering song.... \r\n\r\nDay again;  and ochre, cerise and pink fingers \r\nReenact Homer in the long trail of clouds \r\nWhipping past the back of the dark ShopRite.... \r\n\r\nSun has not yet tarnished the lower waters of puddles. \r\n\r\nThe surrounding dead no longer throng my dreams. \r\nThe fractured paths they wander have returned to bed. \r\nThey wait politely for me to finish up, their hands folded, \r\nAt the edge of the grass.\r\n<\/pre>\n
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\nDust of Frost
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nGoing out for my morning paper, I see \r\nThe first dust of frost on the stone stoop. \r\nHow quietly summer must've danced away!\r\n<\/pre>\n
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\nThe Slow Presences
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nThe slow presences of winter clouds in these hills. \r\nWhat hand behind the cloth?  What windshield \r\nKeeps them from pressing into the earth?\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\n*** JOINING HANDS WITH THE GRASS ***
\n<\/h2>\n
 \r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
\nI Have Been Driving Like Hell to Get Here
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nPastels of pastureland flit rapidly past \r\nThe window that closes over my life \r\nLike a dome.  Am I the motor of my own going? \r\n\r\nDoubts flick into my face, hands full of car-wheel \r\nAs though carrying a doughy wet baby awkwardly \r\nFrom the pool to the sun-porch, slippery being, \r\n\r\nA freight of sunshine in my burning arms.\r\n<\/pre>\n
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\nSome People Living on the Plains
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nSome people who live on the open plains \r\nThink like sailors.  \r\nTheir lives sail thorough waves of grass, \r\nEye-high stalks of waving wheat, \r\nFamiliar with squinting at horizons.  They sway-stand, \r\nFeeling earth unstable beneath them.... \r\n\r\nThe barn enlarges like a frigate nearing, \r\nHorses gorgeous as mermaids, \r\nDogs happy as sea-otters.  Even at noon \r\nThey know they are alone on vast wastes, \r\nNo sextant to show the way.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
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\nThe Black Tadpole
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nThe tadpole is bulking up its black bulbous head; \r\nHuge thoughts protrude and the eyes bulge. \r\nIts long tail, once subtle and swift as a ribbon, \r\nReels in, shrinks to a cape, then \r\nA small triangle hood, a judge's black cap, \r\nThen no tail below hunched shoulders. \r\nThe tadpole, a black rock, is all brain now. \r\nLike a rock's shadow it sits all day \r\nIn the mud, motionless \r\nUntil it leaps!\r\n<\/pre>\n
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\nPoetry, The Oldest Human Endeavor
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\n   \r\n1. \r\nDon't write what you feel, that's not enough. \r\nDon't write what you see, you're being deceived. \r\nWrite only what you feel when looking closely. \r\nThat's best, though painful. \r\n\r\n2. \r\nMan is a herd animal. \r\nFollow the bent grass, and you'll find him \r\nMuddying the river, his head low, \r\nDrinking deep. \r\n\r\n3. \r\nI can see the first old shaman, way back, \r\nHolding up his chicken bone and singing about the universe, \r\nFirelight lasering about him.\r\n<\/pre>\n
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\nI Am the Arrow
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nNature points the poet, \r\nWillfulness tautens the bow. \r\nLove looses the arrow.\r\n<\/pre>\n
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\nBeing a Snowflake
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nFleets of late autumn clouds are thinking, Down,<\/em>\r\nCrowds of trees and animals, Look up,<\/em>\r\nWhile each zagging snowflake sings, I am.<\/em>\r\n<\/pre>\n
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\nStanding on a Stone
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nThere's a kind of hard sanity in a stone, \r\nA place to stand and look at stars.\r\nA place for sleep beneath stars pinned inside \r\n\r\nThe skull of night... smells of woodponds among pines,   \r\nThat small resonance of sap and stillness, black \r\nAbandoned reflections that go a hundred feet deep!  \r\n\r\nI know my bones, and sleep on them, heavy. \r\nThere's sanity in their steadfast ache, \r\nThe tension of a blade swimming through muscle. \r\n  \r\nThrough many years of sleeping, and of dreaming, \r\nI've charted my inward stars and prayed beneath them, \r\nCold knees on the stone, stars where stars are.\r\n<\/pre>\n
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\nThe Things Nearest
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nToday I tighten my daily tie and look \r\nAt the things nearest in my untidy nest \r\nTo hold them mindfully while day turns, \r\nFor what's nearest is easiest to forget. \r\nI lay rough hands more roughly around \r\nRungs of my bentwood chair, knowing how\r\nAll worlds flow through my ordinary room \r\nWorn every day around me like a favorite belt: \r\nSyria's sandy shadow on the calendar and \r\nJapan's swans on travel posters, keep pace \r\nWith walls moving thousands of miles per hour; \r\nSwiss Alps sharpen long rows of pencils, oceans\r\nFollow the same moon as my water-bottle. \r\n\r\nI watch the cat's world fall asleep on her paws, \r\nHer ears listening to a wilderness within \r\nWhere untame things are flying, singing out \r\nLoud and alertly, and all within my room. \r\n<\/pre>\n
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\nBeing Small Things
\n<\/h2>\n
   \r\n1. An Abandoned Oar<\/strong>\r\n\r\nMy days of rowing are over. \r\nI lie in the sand;  and the surf \r\nNever reaches me now.... \r\nIts long fingers of foam, \r\nIts cold flash along my spine. \r\n\r\nI could be the wing of a plane, \r\nThe fallen plank of a windmill, \r\nExiled from flapping and skies. \r\nBut I am an oar. \r\n\r\nI've spent my life filleting the deep, \r\nRaising small white scars \r\nOn blue waters;  and then leaving, \r\nHandled by callous hands. \r\n\r\nI lie in the sand;  and the surf \r\nNever reaches me now.\r\n\r\n\r\n2. Chandelier<\/strong>\r\n\r\nI'm hung with small lights like crosses. \r\nMy strong iron is strung on a string. \r\nMy smile is gorgeous but frightening, \r\nI spread my fiery wings! \r\nEach hour is quartered with losses. \r\nEach night I'm lit up like a drunk. \r\nThe strangers, a family, the darlings, \r\nBreak bread beneath my sparkling. \r\nThey leave me hungry and alone in the dark. \r\n\r\n\r\n3. The Bottle<\/strong>\r\n\r\nOnce the vodka's gone \r\nDown a drain, down a throat \r\nAn eye looks in to check-- \r\nEnormous, Godlike, fringed with lashes. \r\nAnd I become clear, not hollow, \r\nUnless the way a bass is hollow \r\nIt is so full of possible notes. \r\nA child finds me in the alley, \r\nLicks my lips, and blows \r\nA soulful whistle out of my belly \r\nFor a few hours one afternoon, \r\nThe sound unpronounceably lonely. \r\n\r\nThrown into a passing river \r\nI float for a while, spinning, \r\nA glass-bottomed boat showing stones \r\nAnd weird fish flashing by \r\nUntil I sink into invisibility. \r\n\r\n\r\n4. A Goldfish <\/strong>\r\n\r\nI confess my memories \r\nAre possibly possessed \r\nBy madness: void, distorted, \r\nErased like a chalkboard \r\nSome mysterious force \r\nHas powerwashed black. \r\n\r\nIf I remember once \r\nWanting some one thing,\r\nIt was to grow beyond \r\nAll this childishness \r\nSo I could finally play \r\nForever--a sea-going fish\r\n\r\nWho trusts the rising wave \r\nThat surrounds him, \r\nThat carries him with it. \r\n\r\n\r\n5. The Slow Eye of Things<\/strong>\r\n\r\nTrain yourself to look \r\nWith the slow eye of things. \r\nSpeak in such a way. \r\n\r\nIn summer,\r\nInclude a garden's iron palings \r\nAnd the rust to come. \r\n\r\nIn winter,\r\nSense the glimmer in the frost \r\nThat aches for light's release.\r\n<\/pre>\n
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\nThis Living Forsythia
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nAlong saffron branches beside wet asphalt roads, \r\nTiny cups of flowers pop tenderly out....\r\n\r\nSmall flowers, mounds of yellow crayons peeling,\r\nThis living forsythia: a trembling, waterfalling fountain!  \r\n\r\nThe sound the wet road hears is a man  \r\nWalking all winter who has stopped walking. \r\n\r\nI stand in shivering air filled to overflowing,\r\nSinging suddenly with upturned mouth and eye....\r\n\r\nDeep in the crosshatch of branches, way in, house \r\nFinches are already eating up the soft, delayed buds.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\nThe Window Is Quiet
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nThe window is quiet, but everything comes through it. \r\nI want to write like that. \r\n\r\nSunrise trees emerge like Q-tips from the ear of the dark. \r\nWhen the mylar sky comes close, its colors run\r\nLike pushing on a silvery balloon! \r\nWhat are we filled with, that this is what we come awake to?\r\n\r\nThe wind's yeowling.  Is it coming nearer to us \r\nOr following the dark, running away? \r\n\r\nTransparent's not the right word, exactly, \r\nNor exactly wrong either. \r\nLook through the window;  no need to touch the glass.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\nSolitude Walk with Me
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nTasseled lines of forest hills... watercolors \r\nBrushed onto screens of airy paper... banners\r\nOf ocean light, wavy and green and mantling; \r\nHow smooth, how rapid, their interchange of tones! \r\n\r\nThese hills are seaweed floating over ancient stone, \r\nSolid seas up-risen that break both heel and bone. \r\nSix-thousand years of silent looking tell me: \r\nI am alone.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\nWatery Beings
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nLice-like prayers pulse on the naked lips\r\nOf mad imams... thoughts that move in regimentation... \r\nDeath in the beetle's face, death in his spurs. \r\n\r\nWhy not have thoughts that live like water drops-- \r\nRolling everywhere like dogs, doing their own thing! \r\nCurious enough about existence to evaporate.... \r\n\r\nBells are sounding everywhere, ripples running everywhere...\r\nDays of rainfall... hosts of microscopic organisms \r\nReenact evolution in every bead of water.  \r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\nLetting Secrets Out
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nWho has asked you here, and why \r\nHave you come running, wet and alive \r\nFrom inside your mother? \r\n\r\nIs there a secret you need to tell \r\nThe rest of us panting here, run  \r\nAlive out of our mothers too? \r\n\r\nYour eyes seem large with things \r\nAnd my ears are swirled to listen, \r\nCaves for words and owls. \r\n\r\nBend close now, tell your secret \r\nTo me, fly in among my wet \r\nRocks and stalagtites, shake \r\n\r\nWise silence off your wings, \r\nLet your secret become one  \r\nOf my secrets too.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\nOur Winter Bodies
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nThe sky is so clear today I could bite it! \r\nCold drives our heads into our shoulders\r\nHunched far down like the turtle's, shyly reptilian. \r\nRainbow scarves tesselate wildly before our eyes. \r\n\r\nWe have settled into our winter bodies today. \r\nWe huddle around banked embers in the chest; \r\nOur breath flares up, orange and oranger, \r\nAs if to burn the brown and dusty leaves....\r\n\r\nBeyond us lie great clarities: white town sidewalks \r\nSwept clear as a dog-path through old pines;\r\nA globe of lake close by, clear and focused as a birdbath. \r\n\r\nWhen we are beaten into our winter bodies, \r\nSeeing things through an October mask, how loudly \r\nWorlds outside us go on rattling their leaves!\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\nBitten by Red Ants All Over
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nWar comes.  The ant cannot imagine dying, \r\nIts red head beaded with the others around the savage queen's neck. \r\nThe ant was hatched to march, to obey. \r\nInvisible swift scents of the leader pulse connivingly. \r\n\r\nFor all we share with ants, let's depart from that. \r\nKeep your head when the drum stirs.  Look at the grass. \r\nFeel the timid air pass your heated ears, bathe your head. \r\nSit in a circle, join hands with the grass for awhile.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\nThe Sunday Dog’s Appalling Bark
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nThe Sunday dog's appalling bark, a cry of sows \r\nEndorsing the rooster's raucous hauling forth of day.... \r\nI peer up from the damp drainpipe of my dreams-- \r\nThe earth dreams... of rust... gold unopened ores... veins....\r\nI see the morning sun arrayed on its swaying stalk, \r\nThe sky in a water-pail walking.  I open broken\r\nWooden pens, cross mud overstepped with hooves: \r\nEach dirt mark is a hoof's beaten circle, almost complete....  \r\nAll day dark heats of peat moss enclose deft hands, \r\nThis richness burying... seeds... time burning.... \r\n\r\nLet the languorous resonance of the tower bell \r\nTell the town asleep... what I cannot tell.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\n*** HIDDEN ROSES ***
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
\nDrumming in Mid-Ocean
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nGive it up.  Give it up! \r\nThrow your whole life out the window  \r\nAnd watch it startle. \r\n\r\nListen with the attentive ears of a bat, \r\nThat blackness that captures. \r\nImitate the loyalty of your own dog. \r\n\r\nA lot of things are happening  \r\nOut there where weather gets started every day. \r\nGet wet in that. \r\n\r\nSometimes, two patches of rain will meet\r\nMid-ocean\r\nAnd become one drumming upon the deep.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\nA Door Closes
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nA door closes softly, and suddenly you \r\nAre gone, having considerately let \r\nMe sleep on and let yourself out. \r\n\r\nMy dreams, which had been full \r\nOf the mild gold of Monet's haystacks, \r\nDrain away like mid-morning fog. \r\n\r\nI am left with a room precisely square. \r\nI am left with my discipline to continue \r\nMy day, in the ordinary scent of me. \r\n\r\nI nose around the trail you have left \r\nLike a cat, in a pretense of indifference. \r\nI give up while watching the coffee cool \r\n\r\nAnd fail into my life for the millionth time.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\nHidden Roads in the Rose
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nBeauty and mystery are so daunting! \r\nAbstractions vast as a landscape \r\nAnd no horizon home. \r\n\r\nYou have left, and left a rose \r\nBehind you, for me to sleep with under \r\nMy pillow, a trail of petals \r\n\r\nFrail as your departing breath: \r\nSomething you said about dreams in the garden mind, \r\nA greenness we each keep secret. \r\n\r\nThere's a closeness, a smallness \r\nIn what you have left me;  this one thing, \r\nSo privately left to me alone. \r\n\r\nAll night I ride down the roads \r\nHidden in the rose \r\nYou have opened.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\nFinding Each Other
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nThere's a glue that sticks us where we pause, \r\nA magnet that attracts, pulling the iron in \r\nOur blood into an invisible arrangement, lines \r\nOf force like patterns of a great history \r\nDragging Hannibal's horses or trains of cold \r\nCannon over the Alps.  \r\n\r\n    \t\t\t       That's how it still  \r\nIs when our eyes meet, two bullwhips \r\nTangling each other like a mad handshake \r\nTesting the wild pull of freedom--while love \r\nComes with carrots, patting the long nose \r\nWith its crooked white streak, and saying,\r\nSoftly as feathers, \"Whoa, now, whoa.\"\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\nLiving Together
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nSomething close and potent is in my life. \r\nI turn over grumpily in the hot bed \r\nAnd clasp her, a mollusk saved by a passing freighter!\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\nThreads of Words
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nI notice we are speaking of nothing  \r\nAgain, our words returned tight to the spool, \r\n\r\nAnd the spool sits there, silver and glittering,\r\nWaiting to unreel and catch what passes: \r\n\r\nA pebble of thought, a gesture renewed\r\nFrom loving days that passed last winter.\r\n\r\nWords arrayed fine as a bridal veil in the sun\r\nCatch something living perhaps, small as a dot.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\nAt First Light
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nI like you for no reason.  What's the cost \r\nOf liking first, and regretting only in case? \r\nIf you live busily you may never discover \r\nMultitudes of bruises even the best \r\nOf us leave each other--the quick turn \r\nAway, the slow acceptance of a gift given. \r\n\r\nThink how hard it is to understand a car \r\nAt first glance, all those moving parts \r\nHooded and chromed.  Or how hard it is to see \r\nFlight in a fallen feather, love in parental \r\nDiscipline.  At first light, looking \r\nIs a flurry of painful blinks.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\nCrossing the Middle Days in Starlight
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nWhen the husband meets his wife at first, \r\nHe sees himself in her as she sees him: \r\nLong-boned and noble, a little brave. \r\nWhen husband and wife cross looks in their \r\n\r\nMiddle days, days too busy, full of blurred words \r\nAnd busy hands--cool nights of rainwater \r\nFill each others' eyes;  and there is grass, too, \r\nGrowing calmly under their hectic feet. \r\n\r\nThe idea of who you are bothers you less as \r\nYou get a little older;  things go dim around \r\nYou, the things within you still real as leaves \r\nDancing, starlight on a tulip, the sss of a simmer. \r\n\r\nWhen the husband then meets his wife at last, \r\nHe is in her eyes as he has come, finally, to be: \r\nSimple as a stone, a man standing on the grass  \r\nThey've grown under their feet, under warm  \r\n\r\nStars together every night of their lives.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\nNets of Togetherness
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nHow many words link our nets of togetherness! \r\nIn a lifetime, a married pair will utter millions, \r\nAll flavors, at every decibel blared or hushed; \r\nThe nets of words cast, one over the other, \r\nVeil after veil, are full of sacred fish, the fish \r\nJesus divided among his flock--their silver bellies \r\nCaressed by a thousand touches, bitten by a thousand teeth. \r\nTorches we have carried ten thousand nights appear \r\nWhere nets of the lovers' mouths elongate to vowels, \r\nThe stars still inside them, constellations and all.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\nStars Falling in a Lion’s Mane
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nWe picnic on fallen October hayfields \r\nAs if pitched upon a lion's mane. \r\nThe stubble is still soft, and grass pokes through; \r\nSummer is in our bodies like an electric coil cooling. \r\nThe sun is risen far up from the gullies, \r\nThe wine's still cold and fresh. \r\n\r\nWe are far away from death, we two. \r\nOccasional clouds pass in white pairs; \r\nNight sleeps under a woolen blanket in Kyoto. \r\nWe feel hot when the breeze dies down, \r\nAnd laugh out loud, spilling bright square  \r\nCrackers everywhere like falling stars.... \r\n\r\nFlies nuzzle the jam jar sleepily, \r\nMaking slow black circles around the red.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\nThe Glass Antelope
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nI labored at the bellows until it was second nature--\r\nThe rapture of the rhythm came easily then,\r\nClear shapes opened over intense fire, the fire \r\nGoing in gold and heavy as an ear of corn. \r\nI push the belly hollow with my nothing breath \r\nLike blowing a hunting horn over and over in the cold....\r\nAnd then the tweezing pull of legs from the mass, \r\nMany pinches, quick, for the antlers limber \r\nAs candelabra, lithe brachiform coral dancing\r\nCrystalline, an ice-laden dogwood in winter.... \r\nTuning the nostrils with a bit of scrap wood, a spike,\r\nI trim the hot hooves with steel clippers last \r\nAnd stand it here before you, a glass antelope.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\nLake George Serenade
\n<\/h2>\n
A Canoe Against Dark Water<\/strong><\/p>\n
The effort of one consciousness, or a mated pair, to hold together…the uneven weight of each foot entering a lake-borne canoe against the dark water….<\/em><\/p>\n
\n1. Driving Away from Home
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nThere's nothing here but strange sky, strange land. \r\nThe leaves are in their autumn beauty, of course;\r\nThe trail up leads nimbly away from hotel hot-cakes; \r\nAt our feet unrolls a lake named George. \r\n\r\nWe drove up here because our home was crowded, \r\nLoaded down with familiar things: the bag of purrs \r\nThat is the cat resting, the huddle of photoed friends \r\nEnlivening a shelf above my writing desk.\r\n\r\n\"You'd best not lie to us,\" they say;  and I look \r\nNumbly away, dismantling ice castles on the page.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\n2. The Hudson Walkway
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nThe whole thing feels unevenly alive\r\nAs we step out onto it, the donated planks \r\nRibboned with names of other walkers \r\nWho came here first and left their names \r\nGraffitied in charity. \r\n\r\nBelow our feet: the river vivid\r\nAs ever, old rusty rail tracks tacking\r\nBack and forth into history, bearing\r\n(As we do the air) its heaviness\r\nSlowly swaying under all.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\n3. Sensing Mists First Thing Today
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nBeyond your gold ass on hotel sheets at Ft. Wm. Henry, \r\nMists settle in sullen crevices of the mountains, \r\nPearl-ash dull over the too-long lake's aching sparks. \r\nWhat is there to do on this weekend away? \r\n\r\nI toggle the fireplace switch;  blue acetate flames \r\nJump among log-shaped ingots under dim glass.... \r\nThe early chill of this closed-down summer town! \r\n\r\nA showboat paddle-wheeler creaks at rest, \r\nIts great wheel covered like a useless swimming pool.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\n4.  When The Bull-Wheel Turned
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nBack when the bull-wheel turned, \r\nWhen folks rolled up the mountain \r\nWaving from the gondola's cocoon, \r\nAnxious for a healthy retreat \r\nOn Prospect Mountain--the view down \r\nWas very nearly the same as \r\nToday: yellow leaves mixed in \r\nWith dwindled pine, bright lakes \r\nTeaspoons along the long valley \r\nOf the arterial Hudson River.... \r\n\r\nAfter Garfield was shot down by \r\nThe measured bullet of an anarchist, \r\nAfter Little Big Horn hit the papers, \r\nManifesting destiny, those folks \r\nWould take the coal-powered steam \r\nBull-wheel railcar to the mountaintop \r\nDay after day for days for the \r\nSame long-range view as today:\r\nTwo-thousand feet above daily \r\nStress, and not an extra step taken.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\n5. Flat Ice, Flat Clouds
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nSoon this November lake will be flat ice, flat clouds,\r\nAnd fish dull creatures within it;\r\nRed clouds reel by like a painted lampshade \r\nLit somehow from deep within themselves.\r\n\r\n...Graceless bare shortcuts crisscross the dead grass, \r\nHurrying toward appointed coffins;\r\nI remember the flat cackle of backfires, \r\nThe broken-heartedness of rainstorms....\r\n\r\nI think about the stopwatch of the heart \r\nFor a while, the stuttering race it measures: \r\nHow we paint the wide world with our eyes \r\nAnd read so intimately what's scribbled there!\r\n\r\nMy history is written on Egyptian tomb walls, \r\nBaked in the daily bread the Pharoh ate...\r\nThe Nile-side stone caught in his sandal  \r\nThat became sand.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\n6. Getting Ready for Dreams
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nAll around the lake edge, night. \r\nSmall dots of lights, long tails \r\nIn the water; \r\nWings brushing a face \r\nHurrying away.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\n7. Saying Things Carefully
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nA winter rainbow showed up in clouds like a scar. \r\n\"It's fake,\" says a friend who saw the snapshot \r\nGlimmering in my palm on my little phone. \r\n\r\nWhat do we know of beauty hung like crepe in \r\nthe skies? \r\nScience will report \"waterdrops and sunlight,\"  \r\nBut is that what inflates my heart like a balloon? \r\n\r\nIs our idea of heaven just misremembered dreams \r\nLifting invisible vapor into heavy, burnished clouds \r\nUntil a rainbow like a scar flashes out at sundown? \r\n\r\nMy friend touches my hand, warm blood in a glove. \r\nOur eyes roll together from screen to sky. \r\nWe feel we are remembering a single dream.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\n8. Holding a Place (At Lake George)
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nSeptember clouds open and close like an eye. \r\nSunlight brushes over high hills softly, \r\nAn eyelash of light on a dark cheek. \r\n\r\nHow quietly the paddle-boat waits for a foot! \r\nWhen the foot comes in, too fast, there is such rumbling! \r\nAnd then the steady effortful heave across the lake. \r\n\r\nTwo feet move like man and wife across the water. \r\nWhen one pushes down hard, the other is \r\nLifted high up, a child on grown shoulders, \r\n\r\nAnd the whole open world is right there.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\n*** THE IMPOSSIBLE MESA ***
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
\nStanding in Ecstasy
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nSome days alone I am so happy \r\nMy smile is a bowl of clear water \r\nSet out full on the sill, eating suns \r\nOr dimpled with plumed skies.\r\nThe black cat leans close to drink me.\r\nShe carries my happiness back inside her \r\nRight to the tip of her staticky tail!\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\nA Long Star Ago
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nA long, long star ago \r\nJacko folded together a house of paper\r\nAnd pushed you through the low door, an aphid. \r\n  \r\nHow he fattened you up with green leaves! \r\nLeaves of verse Jacko kept dropping from his soft branch, \r\nDarkly, in his crowded house. \r\n  \r\nAnd all the aphids sang together, \r\nWhirled their tiny proboscises in the air and sang! \r\nYou sang, too, a little, \r\n  \r\nAbout sweet mint Jacko pulled from his pockets... \r\nSwept up in wings of feathery boughs.... \r\nUntil you were saved--fat enough to eat!\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\nWaiting Alongside Grassblades
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nSomething is happening to the plain grass \r\nAs it elongates on the grainy lawn. \r\nPerhaps something is happening inside, or at \r\nThe invisible back of things as we see them.... \r\nJust look at those clouds, those purple Portuguese \r\nMan-o-wars, trailing their half mile of tendrils-- \r\n  \r\nPerhaps the way puddled moonlight churns \r\nDark under the dark dock, and knocks there.... \r\nOr how soulfully the heavy church bell waits \r\nAll week for Sunday wildness.... Perhaps the way \r\nThat happens, perhaps something like that \r\nAbides beside me, inside me, now.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\nClimbing Impossible Mesas
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nI climb broken steps of the desert mesa:\r\nBroken teeth in an infected mouth. \r\nWounded cactuses line my route, tall as crosses.\r\nI look down, out, and see imperfection orchestrated: \r\nThe broken clouds, the broken steps, the crooked river. \r\nI stand abashed and beaten: \r\nWaterfalls of impossible perfection!\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\nBreaking Ice on the Horse Trough
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nBits of sky tear off and run away from us.  \r\nWhatever we thought reality was this morning\r\nChanges:  the workboot that fit a left foot \r\nCries its tightness going out to break \r\nDawn ice on the horse trough. \r\n\r\nThis morning is like other mornings; \r\nSleep lets go of me, hands releasing the wrestler; \r\nThe bed creaked and wept, and the floor  \r\nWas so cold!   \r\n\r\nNight horses come forward from the barn  \r\nStamping;  exhale bales of misty breath; \r\nLine up trembling at the black renewed  \r\nWaters, and lower their long heads to drink. \r\n\r\nWe enter a new reality together \r\nOut of the same forgotten dream.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\nTraveling Tired Miles from Home
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nHypnotic trains are hurtling by night, \r\nSeed-like shuttles in an enormous loom. \r\nSilver miles of track weave endlessly. \r\nMoons watch metal webs appear overnight. \r\n\r\nThe frail couple across from me \r\nPales with cheap fluorescents. \r\n\r\nTheir hands lie near each other, but do not touch; \r\nTheir gloves have been removed and set aside neatly; \r\nTheir old faces look up, hatched with lines and happy.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\nA Missed Step
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nSometimes, walking with wide eyes \r\nOn horizons, an unstoppered hole\r\nEats your footfall.  A gap in balance,\r\nQuick pause almost falling, just before \r\nQuick recovery of your balance....\r\nYou are floating... you are air, all\r\nAir, your fingertips chill, waving \r\nAir, your walking breath upended: \r\nHuffed out, or, worse, swallowed. \r\n\r\n\u2018Open' is a fool's word, you think. \r\nThen your slouched shoulders open, \r\nFeel suddenly the unhidden wings.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\nA Stone Cloud
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nA stone cloud moves, white majesties \r\nI ride like a wet rug all I dare--    \r\nAmong its oval moons, crocodile teeth \r\nScraped and flat, I am chewed and tossed. \r\nGod's wide spider eyes slide over me, \r\nClear blue broken sky, until blood chums \r\nFrom my chest with a rusty smell of coffee. \r\n  \r\nMy old life lies piled by the screen door, \r\nBrown packages I'll never open now, griefs \r\nToo deep to tell.   I lay under a naked tree \r\nIn shaded grass so terribly cold and thin; \r\nIt touches like hair all over, my eyes closed. \r\nI hear a bird beat living wings in the branches, \r\nSinging red notes on so bare a thing.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\nKicking Brown Leaves Around a Hickory Stump
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nThere's an old hickory stump I go back to often. \r\nI sit there and think a good deal about the leaves \r\nLaid out before me if it is autumn, or the leaves \r\nWhispering above me if it's late spring or summertime \r\nAnd everything's talking fine, with the light rolling down. \r\n\r\nIn winter, I walk back booted and covered. \r\nThere's only myself to think about: two brown leaves, \r\nMy hands, restlessly in my lap, the fields surrounding\r\nSometimes layered with silent snow everywhere \r\nOutside me, sometimes just within.\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\nSleigh-Ride in Central Park
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nIt's Christmastime again, and you mount the city sleigh \r\nAround the claustrophobic park, all those dreary \r\nOppressive grey summer things are gone \r\nUnder a snapping cloak of December snow again. \r\nEach black trunk marks a magic circle in the snow....\r\nBeams of darkness reach up and meet the sky-dark. \r\n\r\nBelow you, the horse's wet hooves ring and knock. \r\nAt what muddy door are they hammering? \r\nWhere will you travel when the earth splits \r\nAnd light opens outward for blinded, aged Oedipus \r\n...Years past his suffering, in that slow-witted human \r\nWay maybe even the Bhudda never knew?\r\n<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\nLooking-Up Moons
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nTonight's moon is like looking up into the top of a lampshade \r\nWhere the light draws a circle on the ceiling. \r\nWhen a lasso draws a cow down to earth to be branded, \r\nI think: does a moonbeam draw upward with such strength?\r\nTonight's moon is like looking up into the top of a lampshade. \r\n\r\nSomeone goes on standing on their porch awhile longer: \r\nBarbed wire twinkles above the shaggy fieldgrass \r\nBursting into its pollen-time with seedy passion. \r\nSitting on a fencepost, I watch moon-mottled cattle travel \r\nSlowly toward water, brands blue on their haunches.\r\n<\/pre>\n
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\nMy Circles
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nMy circles were small. \r\nDay, night. \r\nMy context was milder than cream. \r\nMy song, a stamping of bare feet. \r\nThe mirror's tongue licked my face. \r\n\r\nAt noon, I disappear in smoke, \r\nA spoon licked clean of its dollop, \r\nMy poor body on fire, a flame \r\nClimbing up life's rope  \r\nAs along a fuse. \r\n\r\nTo what white cloud am I traveling?\r\n<\/pre>\n
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\nMinnesota Clouds
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nBrawling clouds that carry my breath, my name,\r\nAre visiting Minnesota;  the violet seed I threw \r\nOn snow last winter lingers in the cardinal's bones. \r\n\r\nWhat effect I have continues happening. \r\nWhat I have been is in my being still, beating \r\nBlessedly or damnably in my wrists. \r\n\r\nI regather thrown grain in a cloth bag, and pour it \r\nGolden down a funnel's throat;  kneading bread flour, \r\nMy hands whiten in the dough, Minnesota clouds.\r\n<\/pre>\n
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\nLong Clouds of Things
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nLines of trees against the sky stand etched, scratched \r\nBlood and sap and ink;  and I am stretched, a saw nib  \r\nFlush against white paper that eats attention. \r\n\r\nSo, too, you are stretched and hatched, etched, \r\nMade visible against long clouds of things \r\nYou love today and that are your life.\r\n<\/pre>\n
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\nNovember Shadows
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nNovember shadows define themselves against my sides. \r\nThey try to get inside me, affectionate black cats \r\nMaking biscuits, and I the basket lined with warm flannel. \r\n\r\nEver since spring, I've been falling away from myself,\r\nWhite petals liberated from a shaken dogwood. \r\nIn summer, I danced at my own feet in the grass....\r\n\r\nNow, many years after my mother's death, finally\r\nThere is no more heavy grief\r\nIn my body.\r\n\r\nNow my shadow blows down the street like an escaped cape! \r\nIt tumbles in the flattening winter landscape \r\nHurried by an unknowable wind.\r\n<\/pre>\n
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\nKneeling Under Evergreens
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nAfternoon kneels down among sepia pine needles.\r\nWhere two needles join, a pair of working oars open\r\nIn the small wind of your breath. A minuscule boat\r\nRows rapidly out from the hard shoreline.... \r\n \r\nThe boat departs the shallows of your shadow \r\n--It is heading into the deeps!  \r\n \r\nSounds of waves and the lost calls of sailors surround\r\nThe intrepid craft, waving its wild antenna in the spray....\r\nThe dark acidic water is an ocean of black ants!\r\nThey seethe body over body endlessly as dreams.\r\n<\/pre>\n
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\nThe Eye
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nI find an attractive rock in mud. \r\nI smooth it clean in the river near at hand;  \r\nThe rock's dark veins glow strongly;\r\nMore, the more thumb and water \r\nHurry back and forth. \r\n\r\nSomething rolls solidly in my palm; \r\nSomething simple escapes my saying. \r\n--A white pine needle can't be the whole tree,\r\nCan it?  Why should I have to explain God, \r\nEven to myself? \r\n\r\nDays later, I look down at the dull stone \r\nDry and cracked-looking in my hand:\r\nI remember the black slather of mud, the thin\r\nWetness of water--an eye of something \r\nLooks up from there.\r\n<\/pre>\n
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\nWriting with Flashlights
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nHolding a blue ballpoint pen like a flashlight,  \r\nYou travel the darks of the page blank, empty.   \r\nThe flashlight held before you flickers off \r\nUnexpectedly a few times, like lightning: \r\n\r\nThe forest around you is humid with low clouds. \r\nYour blouse sticks to your skin. \r\nYou've forgotten why you're on this mountain. \r\nWhat are you looking for through the hairy trees? \r\n\r\nA sound stirs;  something illegible as night; \r\nYou chase after it, past flowing bush \r\nAnd boulder, following your small cone of light \r\nUntil dense woods break into baldness \r\n\r\nAnd you're alone with the clouds, wet and dark. \r\nThe night sky eats all your light in an instant. \r\nStars have been writing their sentence for centuries: \r\nThis is why you were born.<\/em>\r\n<\/pre>\n
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\nWatching Driftwood in South Carolina
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nTired with my old life, I come to the seashore \r\nAnd watch battered sticks drift in and out \r\nOf dirty tidal foam, cracked and gored \r\nWith holes whose dark remains impenetrable. \r\n\r\nHow I long to throw my life away!  To float \r\nLike those unsinkable sticks, but I fear the ocean \r\nPowerfully throwing me back and forth forever, \r\nMy soul sucked into a small hole's impenetrable dark. \r\n\r\nFarther out on a spar of igneous rock, strange \r\nYellow lizards skitter and hang upside down. \r\nHow happy, inventing new ways to be happy \r\nOn sunlit slabs of rock!  Why can't I live like they do? \r\n\r\nStaying warm on a wide skirt of stone, breathing \r\nIn and out with my sallow belly, eating flies.... \r\nA black wave tumbles among the gravel at my feet \r\nErasing flat lithe sounds of lizards' tails.\r\n<\/pre>\n
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\nMule Deer Breathing Near Night Pines
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nThe mule deer shuffles with a wounded  \r\nLeg, delicately, her injured limb lightly \r\nUpheld as a lifted puppet, all balsawood,\r\nWith one unlit spot over the backward knee. \r\n\r\nShe pauses beside a big longleaf pine to stare, \r\nEyes of dark oil full of private histories.... \r\nI feel how we both want to live, have the same \r\nTug, intense, in our chests, the same cloth anchor \r\n\r\nPulling steady against invisible tides. \r\nShe flicks behind the shadowy screen of trees \r\nBefore I notice two smaller deer dive behind \r\nThe same heavy evergreen waves she has parted, \r\n\r\nTheir mist breath fading as evening comes.\r\n<\/pre>\n
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\nRappelling into the Dark
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nRappelling at night into darkness, \r\nEbony-scarred seas chant like chain-mail\r\nBeneath me.  I sense, not see, cool cave-mouths \r\nOpen randomly, adoringly, along my route;\r\nSometimes my feet swing in, wildly as a bell,\r\nSurprised hands grip the rope harder in prayer--\r\nEach emptiness at my side as I descend \r\nIs an extra dark in darkness like a black star. \r\nSoon I will be at the bottom-most part \r\nOf the cliff!  Excitement rises like steam \r\nIn my veins;  burning hands tremble on the rope \r\nAnd down I go, faster, faster into darkness! \r\nSoon the sizzling sea will be eating at \r\nMy ankles, my feet treading water in the \r\nOrigin of life!  I'll pull the cold salty water \r\nUp like wet socks--up, up all the way \r\nOver my head--until sleep comes and \r\nSleep drowns me, and I am saved.\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
\nSpeaking into the Glare of Puddles
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nI've looked too long the wrong way  \r\nDown a collapsing telescope, held things \r\nFar from me that should hover fearfully near--\r\nWings of dragonflies active as eyelashes; \r\nThe glare of puddles gone tomorrow; \r\nRaptures of grass the snow is always burying; \r\nOffered help's hand on a doorknob, turning; \r\nSpatter of tears kept under eyelids; \r\nA million refugee sighs;  despairs put off; \r\nUnwanted chores of the heart;  seeing only \r\nTiniest figures of love crumpled in the wastebin: \r\nBrothers;  and father;  and mother;  and you.\r\n<\/pre>\n
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\nEnvoi<\/em><\/p>\n
Stones to Hold You
\n<\/h2>\n
\r\nThis poem is made of stones to hold you \r\nAt the bottom of the river--your clothes \r\nLoosen and float ghostly about you, weeds \r\nClose their luminous green curtains softly. \r\nOnly the words have weight, only the words \r\nStay on this journey beneath surfaces; \r\nBubbles lift from your mouth as you say them....\r\n \r\nTake these words, one by one, and put them \r\nDeep in your pockets--let knuckles whiten \r\nAnd go cold around their friendly grey eggness. \r\n\r\nDon't look left or right--plunge into the river! \r\nTake the persuasive curves right up to your elbows! \r\nWhen the bottom goes slack, keep walking! \r\nKeep going until cool rings of silence close over \r\nYour head, engulfing every word with brown swirls, \r\nYour blond hair drifting silently among the weeds.\r\n<\/pre>\n
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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
EPIGRAPHS Yes, and I ain’t saying you ain’t pretty All I’m saying is I’m not ready For any person place or thing To try and pull the reins in on me ~~Mike Nesmith, Different Drum Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all. It is the little rift within the lute, That by and […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001002,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1743],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-impossible-mesa","category-1743-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001002"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5534"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5534\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7376,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5534\/revisions\/7376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}