As Pale Pink
Before its blooming
milkweed blushes as pale pink
as the shyest dawn
Boulder
Father, each boulder
is your monument for me,
you, who loved the earth
First Yellow Orange
The first yellow orange
squash blossom was just open
early this morning
What Music?
What music do they,
white cabbage butterflies, hear
dancing in the air?
Rapturous
Rapturous, the scent
of milkweed crosses sunlit
clearing in morning
Content In Mint
Cabbage butterflies
are content in mint as breeze
ruffles the dapple
Not To Be Resolved
Knowledge is freedom
and tyranny both, riddle
not to be resolved
As Grass
As grass holds the ground,
I try to grasp a bit, hold
as I go to seed
Power’s So Hungry
Power’s so hungry,
it tries to devour pity
which sticks in its craw
Miscegenation
Brown as chocolate,
this magnolia blossom
after three white days
Golden Bee
Sky of powder blue
and the green day is immense
with a golden bee
Cloud Pagodas
Cloud pagodas float
in the soft blue summer sky –
cloud colored dog sleeps
Robins Arguing
Robins arguing
as first fireflies flicker
and sky is pale blue
No Fire
No fire can burn love
to gray whispering ashes,
nor make it forget
Napping
In afternoon heat
tiger lilies are napping
along the roadside
Indigo Bunting
Indigo bunting –
I had lost not just the name
but also that shade
Babel
I’m dreaming seven
different languages at once –
and I understand
Broadcasting
After the rainstorm
milkweed resumes broadcasting
ecstatic odor
Gnarl
I’d speak with the gnarl
of tongues buried deep in wood,
their thrust out of sight
Two Infections
A cold has me and
I can’t let go of myself –
that’s two infections
Circumstance Serpent
Circumstance serpent
winds around me while I’m not
looking – then squeezes
Flavors
I miss my parents,
missed them while they were alive –
different flavors
Old Oak
That old oak has been
half dead for a decade now –
how life clings to it
Prospector
I watch lightning bugs,
prospector crazed with delight
by a dark river
Green Of Summer
On green of summer
the white dog is a snow patch
that moves but won’t melt
Graveyard
Here in the graveyard
no one but stones and silence –
butterflies play tag
Making Them Up
My parents – I can’t tell
where remembering stops and
making them up starts
Slab Of What
Sometimes I feel I’m
a slab of what I don’t know,
a very strange rock
Adagio
Early summer cool
and lightning bugs flickering
gold adagio
Figures
Geese, ducks, herons, deer –
figures in this morning’s fog
and white dog and I
Palominos
Grasses bend their heads –
palominos in a field
in early July
Blue-Gray Boulder
Morning sun and grief,
how that blue-gray boulder sits,
persists in itself
Brown Bouquets
The cicadas pruned
the tips of small oak branches
so left brown bouquets
Ever Said
I knew more of you
than you ever said, maybe
more, Dad, than you knew
Stuck
My whole life I’ve loved
thunder, as if it could say
what’s stuck in my throat
Cotton
The sky is cotton,
yesterday’s forgotten,
tomorrow’s a dream
Sleight Of Mind
Sleight of mind fools
me over and over, but I
can’t tell myself why
Sudan, 2004
Grief for mango trees
of Darfur – this is murder
of the deepest green
What?
What am I thinking?
I’d get as straight an answer
if I asked a stone.
Homebody
I’m a homebody
who’s not at home even when
I’m right here at home
Deep Inside
Home is deep inside
where all that I’ve lost still lives,
interrogates dream
Even Near Sixty
Even near sixty,
I lose track of myself when
I look at the stars
Infinite
Each trip’s infinite
I never know where I go
or if I’ll come back
Pink Tongue
The white dog is named
song or poem, as you like,
but her tongue is pink
Enchanted Snow
Enchanted snow flakes –
white cabbage butterflies swirl
over woods’ green floor
Tiny
A tiny beige frog,
the size of my fingernail,
hops – a clay hiccup
Stargazer Lilies
Stargazer lilies
are perfumed towers under
the moon’s quiet eye
What Tunes
The wind doesn’t know
itself what tunes it will find
to play in oak woods
For The Living
The quiet of death
is only for the living
who make all the noise
Cosi Fan Tutti, Variation, 7-11-2004
So we all do and
so we are all undone and
so embrace the earth
Sullen
Heavy and sullen
summer’s at its peak – white mold
on the green squash leaves
First Squash
I picked the first squash,
yellow saucer full of seeds
and no aliens
Statue of Liberty
From Battery Park
the Statue of Liberty
is the size I am
Monkey Island
Myself a monkey,
Manhattan, largest monkey
island ever built
NYC
All these people – real
and hallucinatory,
bedded in dream’s depths
Worm Kisses
My parents are both
decomposing, father, first –
are worm kisses sweet?
Sway
I can’t imagine
the hurtling roaring subway,
just ride it and sway
Artichoke
Artichoke – thistle
whose heart’s a delicacy,
soft, tasty center
Point
Cool muggy morning –
a woodpecker makes his point
over and over
My Blood
While it’s biting me
I smash a mosquito, smear
my own bright red blood
Bile
My sense of humor –
so full of bile it threatens
to choke on itself
Secret
Father, you were not
a secret, and so took me
past the bounds of shame
Rainy Season
A rainy season –
yet here is a hummingbird
by a red flower
Lick
I laugh at myself
as rain pours down in torrents
and I lick at it
Tether
I’m dreaming my way
to the end of my tether,
how I become new
August 1
Hasta blooming white
make an august innocence
against sea of green
West Coast 2004
Over Utah 4 August
Sky over Utah –
green irrigation dots pressed
against lean mountains
Buson
Buson in cement
on the Embarcadero –
stiff breeze off the Bay
Alcatraz
Green container ship
silhouetted in front of
stone still Alcatraz
Hulk
The older I get
the more I know I’m a hulk
in which others rest
Little I Am
How little I am –
how more and more I become
less and less and less
Cotton
Like tufts of cotton
fog perches atop Golden
Gate’s ruddy towers
Shape
Shape of my substance
was yours before mine, mother –
and now you are gone
Ill And Cure
No way to give life
without also giving death,
ill and cure in one
Freshness
As time steals freshness
memories of memories
are what’s left of me
Bellowing
The thrill of that note
of this black bull bellowing,
making sure I know
Irrigation
Whisper of water
in irrigation ditches
moving through the green
Kilimanjaro
Kilimanjaro
dapple of banana and
coffee interspersed
Harmless
Harmless happiness
of inhabited instant,
slick twist of now this
Immortals, August 9
Do the immortals
come her to sit on soft clouds
of pink wildflowers?
Lightning Fire
Smoke comes from the north –
lightning’s set another fire
haze changes all hues
White Afternoon
From Yosemite
smoke over the Sawtooth Ridge
turns afternoon white
Dead Sea Otter, August 20
A dead sea otter
still swimming on his back, cast
in Morro Beach sand
Live Sea Otter
A live sea otter
swimming in afternoon swells,
pleased, playful, pleasing
SF August 21
Rose scent in salt air
San Francisco in August –
and the nasturtiums
Boat of Reads, August 22
In my boat of reads
I’ve floated through countless worlds
that could never be