They cling to the earth
like lichens
in deep meditation

Lophophora williamsii.
Fallen warriors sprinkled
throughout the blackbrush and mesquite
there in the valley of the Rio Grande.

They whisper to you
as you roam that arid slab of ground
and spin like Van Gogh
in the night sky
while you sleep.

They call you this way
and that
lead you in directions
you did not intend.

In the dry washes
beware
rattlesnakes wait in every thin patch
of shade

and at night
lightning switches the lights on
and off
and on again.

Once the spirit
of this unassuming succulent
enters into you
accepts you
uplifts you
the sky opens
and reveals the pulsing heart of
God's creation
speaking softly in tongues
heard only at the beginning.

It is glory then.

Space is curved.
The straight line
a Euclidian fiction.
The very fabric of space,
the skin pulled in upon itself,
Light follows this curvature.
Nor is time the heartbeat of angels,
as we once thought,
but our own shaky construct.

The galaxies that we imagine
to be real prove to be
archaic images,
things that once were.
When we look into the heavens,
we look back in time.

When the light of our star
has traveled in one vast
cosmic arc
and returned to its source,
we shall know ourselves.

In that dawning
light will fail,
the stars dim and flicker.
Time itself will falter
and the voices of angels
will be heard.

A woman whose face was found
On a fresco in the tomb of King Philip
of Macedon, father to Alexander -
She passed me in the street today,
alive and breathing roses.

She is the living memory of someone
who lived and breathed, as the
night is long, in the mountains
of northern Greece
A Long Time Ago.

She dresses in clothes that don't fit.
She has cut her hair and crosses
the street with grace.
She can see the comings and goings of people
and also
the passing of clouds from her window.
Her face,
open and almost awkward,
was discovered on a large fresco
in the tomb of King Philip of Macedon.

Mother Ceres
hair trussed and
braided like an artichoke,
smiles down on this mad scene.

Bums asleep on every littered lawn,
cripples, drunks,
businessmen, young women
move by in the shattered light,
pacing to some cynical drum,
proceeding from
place to place.

Armageddon looms
with the stink of diesel
and a sudden roar.

Slow motion bodies
crawl, skip and hop.

The light grows white and
whiter yet. The ***** bus window
cracks
and outside
all is very still.

A head fashioned
from cold stone,
blank eyes seeing all.
A smile matching Death
to his lithe sister
Love.
A smile.

Demeter!
Ceres!
Mother of summer,
the dry wind.

Love the hollow stone,
the dust, the poisoned air.
Love this poor harvest.

We failed the summit that year
Diamond Peak
summer of 1974

There on a razor's edge ridge
sheer drop to the east
thousands of feet
certain death on that side
no safe path forward

And the way we had come
an arduous boulder-strewn *****
Angle of Repose.

As we pondered our next move,
I told my friend a story
that had just come
into my thoughts.

A young man,
as we were,
promised his friends
he would fly.

To their horror
he stretched his arms
toward the sun
and leaped into the chasm.

Most saw a young man
in the long arc of his demise
falling to earth.

But one sharp-eyed friend
saw a fierce bird of prey
come rising
with the winds
and land
there
on that ridge
where we sat
and from which he fell.

The story was a presence
there between us.
We sat together
lost in its meaning.
And then it happened.

A bird of prey,
entirely white,
unknown to us,
perhaps unknown
to Science,
came rising with the winds
from below
from where that boy in the story
had fallen.
It landed on the outcrop
from which he
(in the story)
had jumped.
This magnificent creature
turned its impenetrable gaze
to us
and screamed.

The instant the bird alighted
and flew down the mountainside
we leapt to our feet
to follow.

What came next
took place in myth.

In that myth,
we were heroes
able to run at full speed -
some would call it a breakneck pace -
down that long mountain *****
Boulder-strewn.

Without fear
Without hesitation
in full stride
one boulder to the next.

Boulders the size of cottages
Some the size of a grey whale
mysteriously beached on a mountain.

Flying more than running.

With the falcon as a guide
we wandered the afternoon
through trackless
wilderness.

A timeless afternoon
in the Garden.
And then humbly
back to camp.

You might not believe this story.
But it is a story
as true as myth
and every bit as real.

People passing like smoke
their reflections in the glass
their ruddy faces locked away
in small
intricately carved wooden boxes
that make a sweet music
when opened.

Their bodies, which will decay
and become clean dust,
these also a sweet music make.

Watching
Listening
I breathe the bones,
lungs,
and thoughts of my ancestors
moving with this wind.

Whether carried and strewn like
October's leaves
or as if the wind itself
is the breath that these ghosts leave
in their passing.
The science texts do not say.
The stars,
hard and distant,
offer no help.

There we were at the beginning of the world
A forest
redwood
bay laurel
A watercourse chiseled
into the limestone of that ridge
opening outward
to the west and setting sun

We were almost under water
through miles, through layers of green

We sat together
listening
as the alto recorder in my hand
played on its own!

A tune that called
a mahogany-voiced bird
to harmonize
A tune
that gentled the sun into the sea.
A tune
that wove together
every instant
of the days we had yet to live

Dear Hello Poetry
You like my poems!
This is weird.
What do I have to show
for all those years
scribbling on a tiny notepad?
In my pocket:
$1.53,
an old shopping list featuring
cat food and half-and-half,
also the IPhone I'm using
to compose this missive,
some lint.

Dear Hello Poetry
you made me start writing
poetry again.

I thought I was done with all that.
It's too hard
takes up too much of my time.
Every second I spend
arm-wrestling a poem
is a second I could be using
to eat peanut butter on toast
or walk the dog.

Dear Hello Poetry -
because of you
somebody with an improbable hat
called me a poet.

Don't tell my mother.

And Hello Poetry -
because of you
I cannot buy a hat.

But I'll get over all of that.
I forgive you, Hello Poetry.

But please don't tell my mother.

I saw you
I saw you through a fog

An unnatural light framed your face
your eyes in shadow
as always
the brilliant sun of June
cried in the heavens
the trees moving with the rumors
of what might be

Everything there was to say
about the rest of my life
was eloquently stated
laid down
exclamation pointed

But you, Cynthia.
Never further away
than today.

Tell me what's going on
in your life, my friend.
Did you tickle the belly of the moon
last night?
Lie down in the lair
of spiders?
Or did a sweet wind
take your mind,
transform it into ripples
across the pond
radiating outward?
Or perchance electricity and the sweet scent of ozone?
Or a tiny flower called
"Nevermore"?

Me
I chose to dig a cave
beneath my anxieties
taste something resembling Life,
in congested dreams,

All for a moment of quiet
and the hint of a new poem.

A square is the earth.
A circle,
the heavens above,
the spinning stars.

That which is wide
yet bounded on all sides
is home.
It is that which sustains us.

The earth.
The earth is beautiful oh!
Do come and see!

We live in a world
that is at least
half darkness.
So shouldn't half of our poems
be dark?
Or perhaps half of every poem?

Or half of that?

How do we parse the darkness
of this world -
of our lives -
and still live?

How do we tip-toe on the edge
of eternity
the grave
And smile?

You figure it out.
It's a mystery.

It was a yellow Corvair convertible
Ralph Nader's bogey
our ***-fueled chariot
our escape into the night sky.

We were strewn across a grassy ***** as if fallen from above
stars thick in the sky
still visible in those days
Page Mill Road
south of the City.

And all of the vanities
and honesties of brilliant youth
slouched about our shoulders
lit our speech
moved our *****
in the direction our fates intended.

It was freedom.  It was
escape. It was a foreshadowing
of much trouble
pre-dawn knocks on the door
handcuffs and the tearful call
home.

And a life leavened by sadness,
a constant sense of doom,

but a foreshadowing as well
of miracles dressed in second-hand
clothes,
but miracles just the same.