Bigger than Birdseed
A day, a measured unit. A twirl of the world.
It had its bells and whistles, its come/go/ebb/flow.
I threw Friday words at
you like birdseed…in my ATM way…
and moved through you, running the bases of my
lists, hours before the violence that
silenced your orbit.
I saw your body.
It didn’t care anymore
about the goodbye
I would have wanted.
It didn’t want an
apology
anymore
for my failed
promise, made at Lammas, to
always keep you
safe.
It lay relaxed, honest drapery,
exposed meat and entrails…
TV cops would have dubbed it
an undisturbed crime scene.
Undisturbed.
And I stand/sit/stare/stammer,
looking for Saturday words
bigger than birdseed.
Forty Different Jaspers
Spread them out.
Tickle and tingle and touch.
Candle and wash them,
ready for ritual.
The weight of a collection.
Pencil lapis and lovers.
Forty different jaspers,
obsidians, agates--
dyed Brazilians
in seductive slices.
Gaia seducing my eyes
with mottles and swirls,
my chakras electrical sockets.
Picture jasper,
desert divination.
I see the landscape of
my thirst.
My amethyst pendulum,
swaying drunk. Smokey quartz
to see through darkly
at phantoms waltzing.
I am a stage, a yoga mat.
Apache teardrops,
volcanic glass at the
bottom of a cliff to
remember a massacre.
As if looking through
darkness to see a tear
were magic.
Purple Movements
Purple Dawn on the hill
would open orchids
with mental jaws-of-life,
boldly blazing,
But a quiet moment
has Venus flytrapped her,
mirroring her bravada,
leaving her limp.
Wilted! Just add water
and she'll daisy dance,
teaching Crayola-cheeked children
the sublime cartography
of tripping on joy,
of squashing trailers,
of walking on hot coals
with matches between your toes.
It's a vision worth
open eyes
every time she climbs down
here.
walking meditation
the walking meditation class is poised
watching pumpkins swell
watching crow's feet creep
time lapsed
photography
to chronicle
an epic
of an
opening orchid...
a sunset...
high tide...
or charles remembering that
if you walk slowly enough
you need only stand still
Broom Zen
Charles’ mother is dying.
He has planed
800 miles.
Now he sweeps
her kitchen.
He sweeps the hall,
2 seconds per stroke
by the mantle clock.
“Get the stairs while
you’re at it,”
his father says.
He sweeps the living room
and the porch.
He sweeps the lawn.
His mother is awake.
She asks about his plans.
He talks of job changes.
She takes out 3 papers
and crunches numbers
on the first.
Charles makes
clarifying calculations
on the second.
She rests.
And Charles waltzes the broom.
He spreads out the pages—
her handwriting, his;
The choreography of cursive.
And one more…
He takes the unused page,
with a pause for
all symphonies in the ether,
unwritten,
and drags his dust pile
onto the page
with his mother’s broom.
