"snowmelt" poems
a little boy sits on
the top of a staircase
his laden, waterlogged
eyelashes droop
his vision fogs
with salt
his heart pulses hot/cool
snowmelt
throughout the body
there are missing
people
no mother
no father
no brother
only boy
locked in house
too scared to sleep
while snowflakes
fall in unfettered
air
*there is joy in storm
if one can see it
through the tears
there is comfort
to be had once
the emotion cools
and tree branches are
unburdened from the
weight of ice*
movement happens
up the stairs
dear sister
who the boy forgot
was there
places her hand
upon the boy’s
quivering back
*"We call it snow
when the parts of God,
too small to bear, contest our bodies"*
and angels tell us
to taste the tears
before they freeze
on our red-rubbed
noses
here, taste your tears
says sister.
they’re salty, aren’t they?
Sep 4, 2017
Sep 4, 2017 at 12:13 PM UTC
Western Sources
Mist, rain and snowmelt gather
And soak the Montana crests.
A trio of rivulets carves the slopes,
Grow to rivers that braid into a single course
And the Missouri is born at Three Forks.
Shoshone and Hidatsu rest from the hunt,
Kneel and cup their hands
To raise life giving liquid to their lips
While horses bow beside them
Bellies filled with the refreshing waters.
The river flows north dividing the tall grasslands,
Plunges over the cataracts at Great Falls,
Churns on the rocks below
And drives inexorably toward the sea.
Mandan and Sioux
Soft flute sounds drift from the Mandan village
Intertwining with the riffling music of the river.
By its banks a coarse French trapper roasts a rabbit
To share with his Shoshone child-bride.
Sacagawea sings softly beside him -
Charboneau's son stirring in her womb.
Sioux warriors on horseback
Stand guard by the shores.
How many travelers have passed?
How many are yet to come?
Beyond the rolling hills
A buffalo stumbles and falls
Pierced by Lakota arrows and spears.
Boats in the Water
At River du Bois where the Missouri
Collides with the Mississippi,
Forty men slip into boats and take to the oars
To interpret Jefferson’s continental dream -
Their keelboat laden with sustenance,
Herbs, weapons and powder.
They carry trinkets to dazzle the natives
And cast bronze medals to give them
Bearing images of their "Father in Washington"
That none had asked to have.
May, 2004
Aug 3, 2013
Aug 3, 2013 at 5:42 AM UTC
**"His mind would never romp again like the mind of God."
The Great Gatsby**
Does he fret,
Does he sweat,
Does he pay his bills
On Time,
Even tho his personal stash
Of anything,
Inexhaustible and
He bills himself?
Is he lonely,
So when he romps,
His greatest pleasure is
Inventing new kinds of pain?
Does he like to watch butter
Snowmelt,
Does he turn the honey jar
Upside down
Because viscosity is
A turn on?
Is he lonely?
Of course he is,
Is that why he endlessly
Tinkers with creative destruction?
Does he put strawberry jam
On his watermelon?
Salt on his wounds,
Caramelized onions in his
Cologne and parfumes?
Does he watch reruns?
The bombing of Dresden, Hiroshima?
The shaving of the heads of the French women?
What's his fav. late night host,
When he can't sleep
And. his damaged dreams
Become our unfortunate realities?
Acting childish, a métier,
So he can scold himself?
Does he keep score,
Ever say no more,
Contemplate suicide,
Or just murdering his sons?
Did he kiss Shakespeare's lips,
Or just his fingertips?
Does he sing a Capella
With Holly and Cooke,
Let Beethoven play rock n' roll?
What is he best excuse
For playing with
Tormented souls,
Making so many wonderful things
Forbidden fruit?
Does he worship regularly at the altar?
Irony his faith and skin his vestments?
Are his twisted straight,
His late, early?
His order disordered and when bored,
Does he just close his eyes and
Let us live in peace?
Aug 15, 2013
Aug 15, 2013 at 4:46 PM UTC
I had forgotten the way to the hut that I had traveled to so many times,
so many days. So many moons, I would say. But no one marks moons anymore, except hunters. And I am not one of them. Nor a gatherer.
I listen to old men tell how they felled the stags. I do not believe them.
I am a wayfarer, to use the archaic words I used to love, the words
I had forgotten, the words of time in eternity, the words of orange leaves
on towering pin oaks, the words of circles of shadows settling on Gavarnie, of snowfall in the Pyrénées. Sever Spain from the Continent.
I had lost the language of the ***** spray-painted sheep scampering
over gray-bouldered cirques on mountaintops, boulders turning into mountains in the shadows, in the fog, in drifts of snow. There are no words for this now. Bleating sheep drown them out, and yapping dogs.
There are no words for the radiance of transcendence. “Climb higher,”
I hear them say. Higher into the haze of clouds. Cirque: circle, circus. Acrobatics on hillsides, balancing acts on rockslides, skimming streams in hard-toed boots. I had forgotten the way to the words, far behind me.
I have come to a gate, a steep stile in shadow. No sheep can pass. Nothing looks familiar; nothing looks strange. I saunter in a cloud
of unknowing. I had known the words: worn, smooth as stone unscuffed by hard-toed boots, slick as snowmelt. Slide from France into Spain.
This is the path of Santiago de Compostela, the route of St. James, who said, “Do not be double-minded, brethren.” I cannot remember if I have been double-minded in my travels. I had forgotten the way. If the words do not come, which mind sees the threshold; which mind circles the fog?
What passes, what begins when we travel? I do not look backward.
The way lies ahead, waiting, wandering away from the words. Splotches
of lichen sprout orange and green. “Go no higher for safety.” No higher.
They do not mention exile or ecstasy or the straight path of radiance.
The cirque circles my words in mountain shadows. I must unlearn
the art of travel, adrift in broken fields of stone. I had forgotten the way to the hut. Rocks obscure the path. Light ensures the path leads upward. Nothing is lost. Words hold their weight. Stags dance above me in fog.
Aug 14, 2018
Aug 14, 2018 at 3:19 PM UTC
No poem came to me this morning
as I walked for an hour
in the snowmelt mist
threading my boots through
the brown salt muck and flotsam
winter's junk food wrappers
the city just stared
at its own face in the ice
as uninspired as me
Feb 4, 2019
Feb 4, 2019 at 11:12 PM UTC
Although I hardly gave it a thought
I didn't really doubt
our miniature juniper, a bonsai,
would survive our desert vacation.
It likes the dry
air of our home, needs water
once a week at most and seems
meditative and active, both. While away
I rediscovered my love of agaves -
sotol and century
plant - met Mortonia and became
reacquainted with squawbush, its citrus
drupe which makes traveling the long horizon
of the desert uplands endurable.
Live oaks - emory,
wavyleaf - dominant and regally spaced
giving ground to mesquite only on the sere
sand flats. I counted and drew inflorescenses,
spikelets, florets, awns but grasses
remain a mystery
their microscopic parts. This year
I'll study, give them serious thought before
our Spring starts. The cactus wren was the one
bird I could be certain about. Sunsets
made me sorry
the desert is not my home. But the ocotilloes
flowered before we left and that made up
for the vicious attack of a hedgehog cactus.
Impressive, ponderosa pine and Arizona cypress
the canyon canopy
watered with snowmelt and along the high cliffs
limestone formations predating our arrival by
ten million years of weather. Newspapers
kept us aware humanity had not accomplished yet
the end of history
and that was fair. The planes were full of citizens
who no longer applaud upon landing. Snow flew,
not a pinyon pine or manzanita within two moons
walking. On the dining room sideboard, waiting,
our miniature juniper.
Aug 10, 2015
Aug 10, 2015 at 12:00 PM UTC
Lips became rock face wounds,
chapped and sore and high and heavenly
and I’d still kiss them breathlessly.
And though you walk among
the fields and fences of
my heady acre,
I’ll run the risk of failure with
all my devotion
and hand-woven, written emotion.
*It was last year when the snowmelt came, that your tarpaulin skin grew tighter around your peg pin bones.
And it was then that your coat zipper split and broke; let me take you home.*
Apr 14, 2013
Apr 14, 2013 at 9:43 AM UTC
silence is
listening to
your star's
snowmelt...
tremulously visible
droplets.
descend as
prayers struck
between the
eyes.
envisioning.
to life.
Nov 30, 2018
Nov 30, 2018 at 2:02 PM UTC
why hadn't i thought of this before?
why are children hidden in the floor?
why is our mother missing and
why is carbon four hundred parts per
human? historical doubts, unusual droughts, i thought
i'd never say it but **** canada. **** budweiser, ****
saint valentine and his pagan oppression, bless my blood
for being dark. there is consciousness in the pores of corals,
a strong mind in the **** at the polar regions of this table.
i am not an arctic hare, i am not a vector
for your raging codependence, four meters
into the thermosphere i am not vulnerable to
methane, early snowmelt, or severe wildfires
but you are.
Feb 14, 2014
Feb 14, 2014 at 12:35 PM UTC
(for Glynn)
Singing breeze
Singing breeze
Carrying nothing
Kissed by sunlight
Carry my wishes
Scatter my troubles
Leave the grey highway
Slip through the forest
Birch and pine
Needle and catkin
Shutting the sky out
Speckles of sunlight
Evening sky
How many colours
How many colours
Woodsmoke and silence
Unsleeping river
Silence and river
Wanting to share this
Beautifully lonely
Only I saw it
Only I held it
Stop this stone rolling
Let the moss gather
Living as leaf-fall
Living as boulder
Keener than snowmelt
Fuller than August
Cradle of tree roots
Mantle of mountain
Granite horizon
Breezes will soothe you
Whispering breezes
Will you be listening
Do you hear singing
Do you hear forests
Apr 1, 2011
Apr 1, 2011 at 11:20 AM UTC
Aspen, ponderosa pine, blue spruce
pink glacier-cut rock, scree, ravens
gray jay, peregrine falcon, hawk.
We climb to 11,000 feet in three days,
camp at Lawn Lake for three days. Alpine
tundra. Elk, bighorn sheep, marmot.
Tileston Meadows, ticks in grass,
rock face of Mummy Mountain.
Binoculars show pink cracks in gray rock.
Stoke gas stoves, play cards.
Boil water, set up tarps, lay out
sleeping bags, hang bear bag.
Watch crescent moon slice into
Fairchild Mountain. Moonlight
makes a mosque of the rocks.
Yellow aspen splash in dark green
spruce and pine. Gullies where streams
slash during spring snowmelt.
One rock, feather or flower worth
more than money. Need no wallet,
keys. Just clothes for fur.
All day climb toward saddle to see
what's on other side. One hawk floating
among bare peaks and over valleys.
Wind at 13,000 feet
turns to sleet. Turn back from peak,
take boulders two at a time down.
Winter moves into mountains.
Then we fly from Denver to New York
where it's still summer.
Aug 9, 2015
Aug 9, 2015 at 1:04 PM UTC
Eros
Someone who tastes like
Ramune and Faygo, smells
Like Shenandoah
Mania
Waiting for six months
Only to find that you are
Eighteen and fourteen
Philia
Eyes just like snowmelt
Soft, cool, and fresh in the spring
Small signs of some hope
Ludus
A homecoming dance
Bumping bodies in a crowd
When your date ditches
Agape
The news surrounds us
Against suburban ap'thy
We are fighting back
Storge
Speaking of the sea
Advanced chemistry, and of
Secrets kept from mom
Pragma
One year of dating
But the sun and earth go back
Farther than we do
Philautia
Maybe we'll see it
Like a rose blooming forth from
Torrential blizzards
Feb 25, 2018
Feb 25, 2018 at 5:31 PM UTC
The world around us gets bigger when the snow melts. Suddenly there are new plains of the earth that our life has been deprived of. It’s not necessarily a happy thing. At least not at night when the spring winds are blowing strong and my mind is wandering to places darker than the retreating winter.
Apr 22, 2015
Apr 22, 2015 at 8:54 PM UTC
Gimme the dregs
the sludge
at the bottom of the coffee ***
in a twelve-ounce paper cup
Give me snowmelt
Give me the bile in the belly of the earth
Give me good, clean american dirt
and half-remembered dreams
and I'll show you what it means
to live honestly.
Gimme the sun
up on high
on the other side of nightfall
to tighten the bags under my eyes
Give me dandelions
Give me a candle for warmth and light
Give me the mist in the sky
and a spoonful of rice
and I'll show you what it feels like
to move a molehill.
Nov 1, 2016
Nov 1, 2016 at 1:45 PM UTC
I can't see.
There is nothing to see
behind the blackness of my eyes.
I can hear...
hear the sound of the faraway sea...
the twitter of a bird
somewhere overhead
and a voice...
rumbling gently, soothingly beside me.
I can touch...
your hands, rough with callouses,
scarred with work;
the fabric of your cotton shirt
as it loosely hangs on your strong frame.
I can smell...
the rugged nearness of you,
the sweetness of the trees
and the coolness of the air.
I can taste...
the snowmelt on my tongue,
the remnants of honey from your lips.
Your hands touch my tired eyes...
and of a sudden
I can see.
Jul 4, 2010
Jul 4, 2010 at 10:39 AM UTC
.
Needles and tears jab
At my window, breakouts
Of sky rip through clouds
And mountains shout, drain
From beyond, dark snowmelt
Like cold wind on the ground,
Spatters of my heart shadows,
Loneliness here is warmly kept
By a window I refuse to know,
The sky is old, patching dread,
From my window are new tears
Attached to blur, smoky panes,
In the distance small white birds
Are sailing, stripping what is left.
Jun 2, 2015
Jun 2, 2015 at 2:07 AM UTC
ice cracks floes turn back
belt loosed, beltway free
pavement hit by ten-ton trucks
storming past swiftly-growing seed
snowmelt sinks
into brittle cement
iron bars, deep years rusted
the bridge might hold another year
if weeds don't grow between the cracks
a crash of thunder
lightning-licked hunger
the earth devours cold hard rain
slapping the ground
like a newly-scorned lover
the warmth of her blushed cheeks bright
like a hesitating twilight
Mar 15, 2011
Mar 15, 2011 at 4:48 PM UTC
Her skin pale ice
Her body, winter.
My hands smooth
Across her flesh,
Warmth blooms,
Spring blossoms.
My kiss is heat,
I taste her snowmelt.
Jul 30, 2013
Jul 30, 2013 at 7:10 PM UTC
Grass does grow green in Spring.
Snowmelt's been done, drawn out.
Aye, how you all feign complacency.
(I kiss men at dusk in the street light.)
I've been restless all night, goin' on about them
rimed hearts and their timely, metered whispers in ears:
*O' they say he's got a stellar mind
but that his bones carry weights unkind
and unknown to the modern man's heart.*
*O' they say we'll never know just how
hard he fell; he loved you then and now
he spends his days aching from rapt thoughts.*
*O' they say he's bound to collapse in
but what do they know of whisperin'
and weights of wanting– So heavy still!*
You hold them pages to the flames, what delusions!
Hearts be weighted with bells and ringing.
You've wrapped thoughts 'round index and thumb, such confusion–
Heavy-weighted with iron shavings.
You never go far for anything.
You're wont to be needin' some more swell.
You see the water run from the well.
And everyone here is moving a bit too slow.
And I'm getting a bit too restless.
And every day passes without something to show–
And I am feeling rather restless.
I was just a'pacin' through them woods.
I'm prone to be wantin' some more swell.
I have drank the water from the well.
No, I was just a'snappin' down on some smoked skin.
And everyone since drives me straight moot.
No, I was just ponderin' that moment– Some sin!
Yea, every day since I've felt clumsy.
They'd call it a whoopsy-daisy slip
into loose and hazy days and nights.
Whip-lashing from nails; scratches down backs.
There ain't no more whistlin' nay howlin' in this place.
Hush now, until the well runs bone-dry.
There ain't no wratch who's been wretch'd out like you– Some chase!
Hush'd and still, this well's gone and ran dry.
Apr 7, 2014
Apr 7, 2014 at 1:41 AM UTC
with their great drooping wings
the ospreys returned yesterday
to scan the raging snowmelt for churned up meals
to set up nest in order to begin the process
of egg to chick to selfish fledgling to conspicuous adult
it is tempting to apply human traits to the natural world
[especially for a poet]
but in this case we will work on an unnatural premise
reaching the small point of contentment
in the form of a fish hawk being
putting aside our never ending need for understanding
and stop measuring beauty and form
Apr 13, 2014
Apr 13, 2014 at 11:41 AM UTC
*Pavement at sundown
wears snowmelt sand..
Quiet and empty
until one vehicle
tires and sand
their special crunch
cut a crevice
in Quiet space..
Then in passing
fading in distance
Quiet once more
swallowed the crunch
healed the crevice…*
Nov 27, 2013
Nov 27, 2013 at 11:50 AM UTC
To California:
You are a land of gold and opportunity
the manifest destiny grasped
the cradle of many too-distant friends.
To Ohio:
You are halfway across the country
the destination of a poignantly-missed friend
the cradle of a new beginning for her
the end of our era.
To Oregon:
Rivers between us, pumping blue blood to the sea
in you, I stumbled from girl into woman
in you, I woke up and stood up, and
made the first memories I treasure.
To Canada:
You are my parent as much as America
a cleaner, calmer shadow of your sister
more vast than words can encapsulate,
an undiscovered prairie of 100-person towns
beautiful and insulated, insects drowning in amber.
Oil pumps in canola fields
twisted pines from the Dark Ages
atop mountains green with August snowmelt
impossibly broad skies and midnight suns
dancing under the northern lights in my cousin's wedding.
You gave me a
plastic bag with two passports, cracking open
the world.
To Washington:
You are the ever-green land
vibrant and beautiful in my memory and before my eyes
the thrumming of Seattle music,
the steam of fresh coffee on perfect grey skies
warm sweatshirts and jeans that fit just right
copper hair curling perfectly on my shoulders
poetry reading in cafe basements
excitement at discovering my voice.
You are the cradle of my closest friends
my bitterest regrets sweetening my
hang-over coffee.
You were my first start
and every new beginning after that.
You were my first home
and you will be my last.
Apr 21, 2014
Apr 21, 2014 at 10:33 PM UTC
lights precesses against smoothing-out
concrete, dawns like these. red runs
down and out my twitching strings,
puddles on the brickwork gathering
about every footstep. trying to make
myself a little more like you. a little
further away. a little less dizzy.
a small crown of wilted lilies.
woke up feelin' somethin' similar, taking
a collection of successive moments
erasing all wishes my lips could ever
graze pastures you stitch between
snowmelt watercolour blinks and the
sugar in your navel and (well, you
get the idea). glacially, i converge to
some semblance of divergence. stop
wishing a second to next. what good
are wishes? what good am i to you,
at least yet? with heavy linen, i'll
mend. i hope you see me, beautiful
as dawn, wide-eyed, mauled by
no icicle; and increasingly lament what
you could
have had, honey
May 29, 2014
May 29, 2014 at 7:24 PM UTC
When snowmelt
from the highest peaks
cascades into valleys
below, it rushes down
arroyos, leaping over
boulders, circling
round eddies,
and settles into
lakes and pools
that echo
the azure sky
Along the way,
it finds itself
in blades of rising
grass, on barren
meadow floors
and in the roots
of ancient trees, that
sip no more than
they need to fill
their budding leaves
They emerge slowly,
from dormant slumber
stretching, like monarch
wings unfolding, giving
homage to the sun
And then they bloom,
in vibrant multicolored
celebration of the
renaissance declaring,
the arrival of a new day
And they give sustenance
to the twigs and branches
and the trunks, whose
toes reach deep into
the soil, and they
give themselves
to winter's spring
And they give themselves
to the fleeting wind
Mar 28, 2014
Mar 28, 2014 at 11:12 AM UTC
Occurs in Late Winter
Releasing water to the earth.
Beneath the ground the seedlings
Drink deeply this essence
This Love Child of The Sun & Air.
Yes, celebrate the gift of pure Love
Freely given to All the Living upon the Earth.
It is Creation!
Preparing to burst up from the Earth.
Joyfully Heaven Bound.
Feb 20, 2020
Feb 20, 2020 at 12:36 PM UTC