The dough is molten at oven spring,
like a prayer to the historicity of things ..

Have we not imagined yesterdays
in the ritual of bread ? While our pasts

lay embezzled, on the tongues of men, the
sentiment of centuries colluded in germ,

echoing through heirloom remembrances
those floury philosophies of change.

While I stretch dough to gaze past
a windowpane, as far back as Khorasan ..

they were other names then, another
elasticity in time. Faith is a memory

of settled people in lands of milk and
honey, where every drought, every flood

spawns a new religion .. and the wheat,
always begs the same old question:

Are we there yet, in the fertile crescent
of opportunity ? The grains haven't changed

in their stolid countenance - long, subtle,
germy, cosseted. In the granaries of kings ..

they are willed by royal decree, never to die
in an eternal future and like humankind,

who score bread in the cuneiform of hearts,
grain is always thirsting to seed the land.

Summer’s not done
but the oven plinks anyway
and the sizzle of potatoes
in too much fat rattles on
regardless

Looking for a plan
to homestead with honey
You find the land
and I’ll bring the money.
Start with 8 hens and
then get a rooster.
Sunlight and dirt are
the best immune booster.
community grown
no, you won’t be alone
walkie talkies instead of upgraded iPhone.
remain lean and fit
use up every bit
for excellent compost mix in chickensh!t.
swale in the roots
of a filtering lily
irrigation to grow
what I’ll use in the chilli
weeds in the cracks
seeds in the snacks
a little help from the axe
and the *** makes us stacks.
And I’ll spin what I comb
from the fellows who roam
on the sod in the loam...
All we will need is
some land and some money,
a pocket of seed,
and true love for honey.

For the last four months, the gears usually churning in my head have halted to an eerie stop. I can't recall anything passed and I can't think of anything new. Dust accumulated on gears big and small making them appear certainly abandoned. It was joined by cobwebs and the spiders who willed them into existence. If I concentrate hard enough I'm sure I will feel them crawling around looking for any sign of life or sustenance. Perhaps these poor creatures are out of luck. I think next, the rust will start to form, and then I will really be in trouble. It will corrode every last piece of metal and take no regard for the way it destroys me. Slowly, the gears will turn orange, and then brown, and then they will cease to exist at all. And that is when I will truly be a lost cause. I guess in a way I'm only getting what I’ve always wanted: for the gears to take a break, to stop churning so mercilessly all the time, to stop working countless possibilities over and over and over again. The most futile effort I’ve ever known. When the gears fall, I think I will be normal. Finally, in correspondence with the people I see around me, I will be just the same. Feigning happiness will not be required, because maybe I will just feel it.

I remember my father listening to Brahms in the living room,
Eyes closed,
Fingers tapping notes on his knees,
That ratty recliner a front row seat;
An island in an ocean of music and a soul
Carried by the ethereal harmony of a
Symphony felt in the bones.

Even when he could no longer raise his arms
And his legs like stones
Rested still at the end of the bed;
When the poison of cancer destroyed all the strength he had,
I watched him still find something sweet
In the music.

They played it on some old radio
And his eyes would close as if
Those symphonies of hope
Could sustain his heart beat
Just a little while
Longer.

I am his daughter, and I know this
Because I also listen for it.

In the gentle whispering of the Cottonwood leaves
Or the light strain of the Meadowlark on a summer evening,

There are also strings;

The faint echo of a violin.

It rolls in like a river from a valley far away and plays the notes of hope.

I can hear the opening sonata quote something like,

Don’t give in

To the darkness.

A symphony plays in the winds that cascade across the jagged rocks of the mountains.

A symphony plays in the sky.

A symphony rolls in on the waves of the northern seas,

Across the reddened canyons;

The notes they bleed like rain upon the
Parched and desiccated world.

And sometimes, it plays in your heart.
You orchestrate the notes with your hands when you run them through my hair,
And suddenly, from somewhere far away,
I can hear the whispered strings of my own violin,

Singing.



Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all
-Emily Dickinson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KL9qp0FNEzU

drops falling steadily
upon a misty world
far more than fifty shades of green
dazzle your senses
make you
     almost
hear
trees  bushes  flowers
drinking sustenance
     ecstatically
dancing in the rain

i almost want to laugh at how much i wanted you
sleepless nights. countless.
wondering if I was even a thought on your mind.
if ever the possibility of us fluttered with one beat.
544 days
even if it was for a split second, in a prayer or a curse
you were there. marring everything that i'd built

*
it's funny. He always gives us what we need.
all i needed was something to sully this fabricated sustenance that i wanted so badly to believe in
&
here it is.

(2017)

I had a daily thing to do,
Which hardest to recall,
To consummate the spider
It took a year to fall.

Her webs had hurled the ceiling,
Another one, she caught!
And gave it for the children
When sustenance has brought.  



E.