My wife won't stop
writing poetry
it pours forth
rich in imagery
nuanced in tone
brilliant
inspired
every line loved into existence
tucked gently into bed each night
and called into service
the next morning.

Whereas
my words are meager
meek
brittle and contrived
words that push a barrel
of horseshit
toward the setting sun
No hope of ever getting there.

Why do I try?
It's really a bit sad
numero dos is my destiny
in this poetic liaison
I am forever the dunce
in poetry school.

But my teacher is a babe
a truly hot number
so I'll continue to sit at the back
of the class
try to follow the lessons
and hope against hope
she says a kind word.

(A note:  in this poem, the authors write alternate stanzas.)

FREEDOM

has always demanded
my surrender to an instant in time
surrender to fate and therefore
to glory

Though my wily will
has oft gotten in the way
with grand illusions and the necessary
fiction that I am in command

But in the end, it is command
of nothing and no one
for that is the nature of time,
mean shrew who prunes our hopes

A clock that does not click
nor clang, but flies tirelessly; one day
its talons will ****** us away, releasing us
forever, from the burdens of the day

And until those burdens take flight
I carry a candle for the hours, open a book
for the days, and teach my trembling hand
to hold on to hope.

(In this poem, the authors alternate stanzas.)

AUTUMN'S CALL

In the stray
sweetness of yarrow
and starlings’ trill by dusk
rejoin the fading
without regret
as the foot worn grass will
receive morning’s frost.

And whenever that green yarrow fades
then I fade
in the dry husk
of this autumn of fire
this autumn of smoke and regrets.

Wake in sidelong sun
light half hidden
days under curtains
of violet and scarlet
leaves so soon
will bury the moss
inch by inch.

But I
being the beast that I am
will burrow through the moss
past every encumbrance
beyond hope and fear
and finally find the freedom of one
sweet day
in October
the air still
not a sound
but leaves settling
into the detritus of dreams.

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.

I’m a friend of darkness
lock lips with it
in a lover’s embrace

I mourn the dawn
beg favors from the twilight
hold every hope
in my uncertain hand
for a day when the sun won’t shine

And I know
by my wayward feet
by the tremors in my hand
that darkness creeps silently
up to my borders
crosses every line
and will someday defeat
my meager defenses

I have prepared my retreat
a forced march
to the grey Pacific
where everything in my life
ends
and begins

The solemn swell of the waves
a fitting harmony
to that last sweet song.

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.

Slender green shoots
press through the
still cold ground
hands of the earth
lifted in prayer

Their strength is manifest
their exertions
carpet the land in green
their tender prayers
press forcibly against the sky
and keep it
at the distance
God intended

In the fall
invisible seeds will carpet the land
buried they will be
but in spring
they begin to speak

These buried corpses
will not only murmur
they will sing
in lush green voices.

I pray I will be there
yet once more
to join in the song.

The cello
mother of music
sings peacefully
from the eye of the storm

A peace purchased
at the price of certitude

Piano provides counterpoint
restrained
elegant
its curtains of sound
dream their own dreams

and a longing violin
makes love to
the air itself

We march deliberately
to this tempo
stepping in time
to the sweet
and terrifying strains
of our own mortality

The composer
died
at thirty one years.
Why - how
have I lived so long?

Perhaps
to hear this music as if for
the first time
and so share it
with the sky.

In the beginning
crows were
as white as snow.
No.
Whiter than that.
Liquid silver.

But in these times
we see Crow as black,
though you will observe
Crow is silver in the sun
(which proves my point).

And there he is
at the very top of
that hemlock tree.

Surveys his rude world
and sees below
one whose ancestors
were here even before
tricks and tricksters.

Even before crows.

Coyote
Old Man
sly one
always ready with a joke
or a riddle

They say he spun the Milky Way
with his deceit
told the Earth's first lie

And as for riddles:
answer at your peril
or carry him
like a whispering sack
upon your back
until the end.

I am a collective
an ongoing collaboration
a group enterprise

I revel in my diversity
sit in its lap
while being carefully groomed

Nothing becomes me
like agreement among friends
Nothing fills my sails
like the wind of good company

When all my words
are stilled
when every breath is drawn
then you might come near

When every tale is told
and when myth
becomes gossip among friends
then
and only then
will I willingly depart.

That's the day,
friends,
when we all meet
on that distant shore,
when sweetness dissolves
into the dark.

I have one foot
in the beyond already.
My ticket is punched
my resolve unmatched.

Give me your hand, my friend,
in good cheer
for nothing now will leave us bereft.

Never yet alone
never yet divorced from grace.

Amen.

One day bleeds
into the next

Leaves wounds
that won’t heal
measures our moments
into finite statements
that knit the hours
into a tapestry of tedium

Where is the joy
I was promised?
Where
the lively waltz?

I grieve before every hour
and bend before fate’s great weight
tremble incessantly
and starve in the midst of plenty

Yet I hold my head up
march on
determined to reach that far shore
where fate will take us
and luck will leave us.

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 turned the sun
into a scourge

Burned two cities in Japan.
It was not antiseptic.
It was not friendly.

It was ****** on a scale
that the world
has come to know too well
but by a means
that upset the balance
of nature

The magnetic forces
of the atom unhinged
set off on lunatic paths
to arrive at something
like the sun

Flesh was peeled from bone
that day
faces peeled from skulls

This is not a pretty thing
not a bedtime story
for your kids

Yet our taxes pave a path
to the next generation
of hell-found missiles
aimed deliberately
and directly
at the hopes
the domestic fears
the quiet anxieties
the moments of wonder
of love
the kiss in the morning
goodbye
the welcome home in the evening
of every person alive today.

Is there a way
to say
No?

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.

Eternity's cogs
geared and ratcheted
to the chain of time

We settle for the simple
ignore and refuse to witness
the obvious glory
of this world

insist on a miserly view
a pinched token

Then the night
closes in
an embolism erupts
into silence

I take a different view
hold out hope
for far horizons
settle for nothing
and struggle to drive
a hard bargain
with one who holds
all the cards

In the end
I expect beauty
a bright light
and a chilling plunge
into the grey Pacific

I hope for more
of course
a taste of watercress
a glass of wine
and an epiphany

All paid for by grace.

I am officially too old
left it all at the station
lost my ticket
and finally
busted by the conductor
for being a poet and a ***
the holy two-fer

Never thought the joke
would go on this long
never imagined
I'd be ******* oxygen
in a posh bar
with Helen of Troy
and me in my cups

Yet here we are
the ships have sailed
the vagabonds have stumbled
home
every swan has flown

And between you and me
Jack
(and while she's in the lady's room)
I am told I was born of a woman
on this day
sixty four years ago

I don't believe it

Birthdays are make-believe
every crease and wrinkle
in the fabric of time
every line in my face
is a testament
to an intricate conspiracy
the stars aligned against me
and on my birthday, no less

They say this ride has a conclusion
people pass on
I have seen fields of grim stones
that attest to this fact

But I'm not so sure.
At this late date
I'm still thinking
I might beat this rap.

The candles of the dead
will not be extinguished
floating like blossoms in the deep
cradled by spectral hands
never seen by the living
except in dreams
or art

Did you come this far
for the view?
Or was it a curious urge
to find forgiveness
in a time of grief?

I can grant you forgiveness.
I have the power
through time and the tides
my calloused hands
have held the sun like an egg
my feet have climbed
Mt. Olympus
and none the wiser

So come gently with me
leave your battered dreams
on the bedside table
drink a draught of this noble wine
stand upon this precipice
of uncertainty
and contemplate something
near to eternity.

The candles will light your way.

I’m up early
as always
swimming in the currents of
a sweet morning
in summer
in Oregon
as if for the first time

Much like the morning
years past
when I woke
with a new girl
in a cemetery in Eugene

We went there to escape the heat
slept on a blanket
naked in the night

So alive were we
and in love

Practicing, perhaps,
for the day when sleep
and death
converge.

Whispered theme
of my youth and middle age.
Now
pacing my reluctant
and uncertain steps
into old age.

But who needs old age?
I sure as hell
don't.

Always the golden child
the fearless one.
Destined to live forever.
That was me.

And music -
this concierto.
Music saved my life
every day.

There's nothing you can say
about music.
It eludes the weak grasp
of language.

But I lie.
Let me try.

It is
the language of emotion
the time keeper.

Bounded and constrained
by the beat
plodding, perhaps,
yet truly free of all that
and, at the end,
filled with the last breath
of eternity.

My avid gaze
spoke to the rosary
of your flesh

My heartsick tremors
marked me as a wanted man
and burned the villages
of my ancestors

I was a refugee
from time
a friend to no man

My tears washed the blood
from my hands
my eyes withered
the tender bud

So when did I read poetry
on your lips?

Did your mountains fracture
and disintegrate into
sparkling shards
as mine did?

Was the moon an egg
in your basket
as it was in mine?

Little do we know
of the other
when first we clasp hands
and agree

In time
and with luck
we learn.

When Coyote witnessed
the Creator making this world
he thought
I will make a world like that
for myself

And so he formed a copy
of every living thing
from the mud
from the branches
and detritus that he gathered
there on the banks
of the Columbia River

But all of his
carefully wrought figures
elk and deer
fish that sparkle in the shallows
black bear
who hides from two-leggeds
the wings of the air
who mingle with the leaves and branches of the forest
all melted back into the mud
of the riverbank
at the next rain

Undeterred
Coyote set out
on a quest

He found a new country
a pleasant land of vast expanse
with every manner of good things

When Coyote came into this country
his hunger
was greater than myth
sharp as the edge of a knife

And there he spied Crow
on a high cliff
with a mouth full
of deer fat

A plan quickly formed
in the caverns of his cunning

Coyote called out
Chief Crow
I am told that your voice
is as sweet as spring water
as pleasing as a woman
in the night

Sing for me
Great Chief
and I will reward you richly

Crow is a vain creature
and being called Chief
gave him great pleasure

He preened
opened his silver wings to the sun
and sang his rough song
but in a muted tone
in order to save
his delicious morsel

Coyote called out again
Oh Chief!
That wasn't much.
not like the stories
I have been told.
Please sing your song again
with feeling!

Crow rose to his full height
****** his sharp beak
into the air
and gave full voice
to his raucous song
for the sake of every crow
on earth

We know the end of this tale
because Coyote taught it
to our ancestors

The deer fat fell to the ground
and Coyote
trickster
scarfed it in an instant

Hunger dampened
he ambled along the well-beaten path
to find the next fool

And that is the story
of Coyote and Crow.
Keep your pride in check
or be the next one laid low.

When the heart stirs
the feet soon follow
or so it is with me
born to be a dancer

Lithe and compact
fearless in motion
a Baryshnikov of the living room
a Nureyev in the night

When my daughter
was new born
seventeen sweet years ago
I would hold her close
dance her through the whole house
sing to her
tell her
I'll love you forever and ever
no matter what
promise her everything
it was in my power to give

Here
in my dotage
my dancing embarrasses her
my rude manners
outrage her at times
No matter

I thrill when
I hear her sing
weep
when I see her onstage
grin like God's fool
when I meet her at
the backstage door.

This tribute
and these poor lines
are humbly offered
by a man who is blessed
a man who wakes up every day
saying thanks
a father proud
a retired musician
(more or less)
whose child
without urging
took up the mantle
and carried it further
than dad ever could.

The dead are all around us
they are as alive
in their way
as we are
in ours

We share a world of shadows
with these manes
and step awkwardly
into the light

Every breath of the wind
is a dead soul passing
every autumn leaf that falls
a secret hieroglyph
from the beyond

Beasts in the wild
know this
thus the coyote
sings his mad lament
the raven turns his dull eye
toward the east
expecting not light
but a flight of dark wings

And dark wings
command my attention these days
my eye
turned inexorably toward
the night

Where every word
is farewell
where all commerce ends
and I rejoin the stream of stars

Done with all of this.
And surely
it will be bliss.

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.

She comes forth
like waves slipping over
the sand
again and again
delivered from darkness
coveting the light

And light is her signature.
A conundrum.
Light erasing light.
How can this be?

I will tell you.

Light is the companion
of the dark
trips joyfully in its shadows

And this dance
weaves a potent tale
of a two-faced goddess
one face peering intently into the dark
one lit by the morning sun

Yet darkness rules the day
hastens the twilight
gives measure to the
dimming
and finally
captures the last of the light
in a sea green bottle

We are drawn into that night
valiantly
or not
weeping for lost opportunities
or not
but at the end
waltzing into the unknown

Yet I do not suppose
darkness without light
according to my theology
a life that ends in simple extinction
cannot be
it is a null set

The fundamental equations
do not permit it
nor can my simple mind
fathom such depths

So in my dotage
I repair to wine and song
to ease the pain
of these uncertainties
and then to poetry
to catalog the human condition
and leave a trace
that yet might sparkle
in the instant of my demise

There is peace at the end
but no joy
the abyss is only
silence

and a taut string
connecting us
to eternity.

You said that October
In the tall dry grass by the orchard
When you chose to be free,
"Again someday, maybe ten years."

After college I saw you
One time.
You were strange,
And I was obsessed with a plan.

Now ten years and more have
Gone by;  I've always known
where you were -
I might have gone back to you
Hoping to win your love back.

You still are single.

I didn't
I thought I must make it alone.
I
have done that.  

Only in dream, like this dawn,
Does the grave, awed intensity
Of our young love
Return to my mind, to my flesh.

We had what the others
All crave and seek for.
We left it at nineteen.

I feel ancient, as though I had
Lived many lives.

And may never now know
If am a fool
Or have done what my karma demands.

They call me dogsbottle
don’t ask me why
it’s a story out of time
branded by eternity

Charity was my subterfuge
desperation my defense

I came here seeking refuge
terrified and angry
ready to sow the seeds
of my own defeat

But a breeze on my cheek
deterred me
the chime of the church bells
stayed my hand
some tempest of grace
soaked the parched ground
of my parents’ need

I was relieved
through generations of grief
and ill temper
given grace as thunder rolled
and lightning struck

a sweet song in the wind
soothed my mind

And me.
Not knowing the day.
A dotard of the hours.

Well and yet alive
breathing still, dear ones.
Grateful.
And with fiber enough
for another blessed day.

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.

In this life
we are sculpted down
to bone
burned to cinders
and our ash
tossed without regret
into the four winds

I wish I could live.
Be a man.
Find comfort in the sun.

But every cell in my body
revolts against time
cries out against the sun
speaks in tongues
for the sole purpose
of creating an outrage
against God.

Oh Lord!
How did you make us thus?
And why?
Above all
why?

We are made metal
and in the end
alloy with the sun.

Our breath is drawn
to fuel that fire
bring life to a boil
and
if luck prevails
to wake each morning
in comfort
and with a smile.

Perhaps the last sweet smile.

O sister
when did you become
the perfect treatise
on love and
the sacred painted face?

When did your words
divide the day
from my night?

It was ninety yesterdays ago
when first your verse
startled my eyes
speaking a language
native to this ground
speaking with grace
with love
and with a defined determination
sweetened by the red clays
of your home

The soul of the prairie
holds you in its embrace
the long vista
the tornado
the tempest
all compete for your attention

And here I stand
at the back of the line
humble
one hand in my pocket
one holding an urgent postcard

It simply says

Keep this in
your hand
it is for you.

We speak the true tongue
a language formed
in the deepest trenches
of the earth's oceans
those places where life was formed
where the elemental heat
of the planet
expresses itself
in steam, confusion
and eruption

We sing in the true tongue
music that is blind
yet sees all
its rhyme set to rhythm
a motion of flesh-hung bones

We stand against every fate
yet our song will endure
it will be the last song

And we paint
with a palette stolen
from the sky
on the day of the most perfect dawn

We are God's thieves
stealing a line here and there
dipping a sad bucket
into a river of stars
holding it proudly aloft
the heart shaped into a song
perhaps a poem
nothing more

Yet more than nothing.
And more than enough.

The universe closes in on me
galaxies align
in matrices of light

This moment was never
meant to be

I'm a cloud
telling tales to the sky
a bit of wind
and I'll be gone

The moment slips through
my fingers
water into the well
while time
that mortal dragon
is readily slain
for there are no dragons
time is a myth
and this universe
bends backwards upon itself
eating its remains
and issuing forth
new life
in a fugue of renewal

again
and again.

I honor my brother in spirit
one who burns a bonfire
on every high hill
to celebrate the proposition
that mere words are a match
for eternity.

One whose poems
though misplaced
are always found when needed.

Luiz
here is my humble advice

Keep the predators at bay
never let a day go by
without committing
a flagrant act of love

Dream always.
And awake from your dreams
with the certainty
that dreams
are the daily bread of our lives.

I know you will.

I came to you
like a blinded man
a supplicant on the road to ruin
Someone who had once owned hope
but sewed it up in a sack
and gave it
to a beggar on the street

I came to you
like a condemned man
inches from the noose
holding hands with a phantom
a shadow masquerading as
wisdom
or death

Finally
I came to you
in desperation
the desperation of those
whose parents have disowned them
of those with a terminal disease
called life
a street corner clown
miming his passions
one false tear
tattooed on his cheek

And you humored me
Held me at arm's length
while you wove
a spider's web shield
to wrap up your heart
defend it
never truly surrender it

Yet you
dear heart
are my one

I never thought it would be like this
never imagined
that a bloviated moon
would sleep between us.
That a crows' chorus
would be our wedding march.
Yet here we are.
Dare I say it?
At peace.

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!

A questionable son
the one
who chose auto repair
and serial monogamy
finds the golden road
to Washington, D.C. respectability

What does his father do?
He buys him a briefcase

And everything followed
and flowed
from that mineral moment

A career
a wife, in time
a briefcase never used
but full of good wishes
murmurs
and marching orders

The road ahead
seemed wide open
stretching west
into a golden glow
and open it was
purged of hindrance
by the workings of time

So here am I
that golden road
now behind me

Life seems a sand castle
on a castle of sand
with the tide pouring in

It is that last ember
glowing as the fire
goes dark

Tomorrow and tomorrow
beckon from a fabled future
they bid me adieu

I can smell the scent
of decay in this
warm summer's wind
kiss the sweetness of it
on my lips

I do not part willingly
hold out my hand
for every shred of
summer's light

But at the end of it
pack my poor bag
and make a crow's march
home
where I belong

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.

She is the slyest creature
ever whelped by wolf
or woman

A barking beast
small in stature
huge in heart

Face framed by fire
done up in fur
the friendliest constellation
in the night sky
one known to all
Hilda

She is coyote
on a good day
a wolf cub at play
a lover in the morning
noon
and night

A slight and feral hound
with ideas of her own

We found her
in the company of
a wizard.
Oh yes!

And he wove for us
a sweet spell of harmony
well mingled
with domestic peace.

Hilda was the incantation.
And the spell was strong.

I am Coyote
in human form
one who drools poetry
sly as a bag of bones
alert to every hazard

Long odds  
are nothing to me
I'll beat every beast
with courage and finesse

And to get to the next realm
where I become myself
I must leave scant traces
survey the world
through scent and sound

And find the bridge
that builds itself
as I walk
across a terrifying chasm
of evolution and magic
to human form

Here to ponder your fate
Here to look to your good nature
Here to endure your pogroms

And survey your world
notwithstanding your traps and tricks
with a modicum of good cheer.

Ever wary.
Ever well.

What is it like
to make music?
It is skipping
on sunlight
opening your heart
to something strange
unexpected
something sublimely beautiful
in those sublimely beautiful times.

Sometimes it's a bust.
Sometimes a thousand degrees
of sweetness.

But when the music
plays through you
when you are not much more
than a spectator
to sounds emanating
mysteriously
from your lips
your lungs
your fingers

It's crazy good then.

There truly are no words
to express the miracle
of music in the moment
the player
listening as raptly
as the audience

It all comes together
at the end
and that's the lesson jazz has taught me.

It will all come together
at the end
in glory
or in sorrow
or both.

Most likely both.

Druid is Derwydd
in our tongue
the Welsh of my fathers

Our land is called Cymru
and we have thrived here
since ancient times

We live by our cattle
first
our hearts and families
second
and our crops a poor third

We are taught that
a mist descended on our land
in the before times
and cleansed the earth of life

And that a new people came
our people
and brought with them
cattle
all of the trades
and a gift for song

We were called Celts
but now we are proudly
Welsh
the dragon is our badge
and red war our way of life

The Derwydd
are our guides
they follow the stars
know the mystic tides
teach our young
and ease our old
into the afterworld

Never cross a Druid
they say
or feel your tongue
curl into burnt leather
in your mouth

Please a Druid
and luck will
lay by your side

I am called Caedmon
wise warrior
son of Lhur
born in the shade
of a great oak

I was taught all of the high arts
poetry
music
and war

If ever you travel
through our fortress-locked land
you will be welcome
at my hearth

Come
bring your sweet pipes
and play
bare your sword arm
and raid with us

When we return
cattle rich
then the feast will begin
then the bards will sing
and poetry will open your mind
to the harmonies of heaven.

Seeing the volcano from below
just another mountain
but this mountain
speaks of the earth disgorging
its molten guts
of lightning arcing
in ten zillion volt flashes
of God's terrifying grace
of geologic upheaval
that happened before anyone knew
anything about God
that happened before anyone knew anything

We were kids on a
long weekend
decrepit jeep pickup
camper shell over the bed
we stopped for an old Indian woman
and her son
hitchhiking
I remember the strange musky smell
of her
sitting by me
on the truck's bench seat
like food I'd never eaten
or a hand-me-down blanket
from the last century

We camped at Green Lake
and green it was
set out the next day
fully unprepared for our climb

But our young limbs
carried us to a precarious summit
the South Sister
nothing but sky all around
and dreams
distant peaks
the sleeping volcanoes
of the Cascade Range
stretching into the vastness
of north and south
Such peace

And here
now
I drown in
a deep web of tangled memories

Vistas I once surveyed
live and breathe in my mind
people I once knew
still whisper in my ear
though they are long dead

How do they live on?
Who tends these grass-grown graves?
Who speaks for these dead?

And where do these memories go
when we die?

Life is loss
nothing more
nothing less

It strips you of
that phantom
the well-tended self

sells your memories
on the street
for pennies

leaves your old worn shoes
in the entryway
as a warning

as if to say
those sad shoes will go no further
than the funerary urn

So I choose to mock loss
to dance in damaged shoes
and with each extravagant gesture
to shout out

Let there be wine
food and song

Let there be no grief
upon my demise
only mirth

Only dancing
music and mirth.

It is all flowing uphill
back into the tributaries
into the headwaters

Life returns to its source
at the end
Chinook salmon spawn in their natal streams and die
their bodies nourish their young
who make haste to salt water
then return from the sea
to repay the favor

Uphill it is for us
a long slog, it seems

We are dedicated enemies
of entropy
unconscious
yet knowing our duty

So these are your instructions.

You must wake each day
and know it as a gift
never pause in worship
never cease your upstream struggles
until it is time
for such foolishness to end.

Grit and muscle
heart and will
life is short
yet sweeter still.

Seven times seven ills
arrive at our door
the streets are silent
Nothing moves

How do  we merit
these days?
Did we earn so little
for our travails?

I blame God
since it is said
that he is almighty.
He could lift this plague
but does not.

So logic -
that machinery of madness -
tells me
this plague is sent by God
for reasons
mysterious.

If my poem is color
then I will wave
every freaking color
as a badge

If I declare
amnesty for every poem
and vow
that no harm will befall
any poem

then I swear
they will remain here
on my verdant fields unharmed

So Sisters
Brothers
bring your lost
your wounded poems
to me at last

They will be well tended
They will not be misplaced.

Who were you?
A foreigner
a mere woman?

Perhaps I valued you
beyond the common measure

I think of the possibility
of lives we have lived
in some past time
some other world

I guess I am a Buddhist
after all.

Because
this fascination
this love
goes beyond my experience

What can I compare it to?

I believe in the potency of desire
that it can manifest itself
across a span of years

a span of lifetimes

I can imagine
that we were
then as now
different in appearance
from cultures widely separated

Let's say that I wanted you
that you wanted me
for so it is today

Let's say that circumstances
kept us apart
or prevented us from meeting
as equals

Let us say, finally,
that this world
in which anything seems to be permitted
was created for us
that we might meet again.

What an absurd
romantic notion!

Tonight the lights are all on.
Other beings surround me.
This world is a different world
for each one of them,
though strangely the same.

Surely this world is ours.
The lights
are brightly lit.

Thousands of insects
cover the glass
dazzled by this light.

We must be dazzled, as well.
For none of us can see.

Not a one of us
can touch the heart
of another.

So since all is permitted
let us permit ourselves this

that we can touch one another
each into each.

Luck is my legend
it leads me down the pathways of fate
it plays havoc with my prospects
and cements a place in time
for every breath of wind
that might shorten my breath.

May luck prevail.

Movement no.1
Andante con moto

Farewell.

I am leaving you
with the sweetness
and the sadness
of every creature on this earth
draped over my shoulders
as a shroud

We rest now
before the final struggle
looking down upon our lives
from a precipice

The wind calls up
a faint sound

a song
of healing
as resignation

So bring forth the dirge
let dogs and oboes
cue the horns
as we embark
upon a tender struggle

We are whipped back
and forth
between grief and glory
in this life

an indifferent life
lush with raw power

But thankfully
at the end of every day
there is sleep.

Movement no. 2
Im tempo eines gemächlichen Ländlers. Etwas täppisch und sehr derb.

Dance returns
and goes mad

Who could lift a leg
that high?  

Not I.

The music careens
off the walls
in a dissonant minuet
of the hours

The clenched teeth
of each and every minute
grind here
as if time itself
took heel
and made a sparkling trace
across the pines
of this exalted floor of dance.

Movement no. 3
Rondo Burleske: allegro assai. Sehr trotzig.

A music major's delight.
Fugues against fugues.
Dense contrapuntal figures
and sarcastic counterpoint
shouting out
from the back of the class.

And then

just love

confused perhaps
but real love indeed.

Movement no. 4
Sehr langsam und noch zurüclhaltend

The violin
noblest of instruments
takes its place

In bitter sorrow
life soon lost
the fruit of the tree
is extinguished
the promise of green days
burned by drought

All is withheld.

There is peace at the end
but no joy
the abyss is only silence

and a taut string
connecting us
to eternity.