An Honored Guest

Across the east field,
Voices carry from the
Gurdwara and the
Rising sun arrives
At our side gate.

Graphs

Dark clouds close rank
Over a moment and
Upon it empty
All their voltage.
A rage of light
Blinds the mind.
It lingers and
When at last rain
Reclaims control,
The brain is uneasy.
Of itself! yes the soul
Demands proof.
I am always a little
Worried about my roof.

L'heure bleue

She painted an old log
Blue before the last 
Leaf fell, then painted
The hour blue as well.

She paints things blue,
A dear part of her --
Dear to me too
Because I love her.

Janus Before Seven

{back yard, 11-28-14}

Time to sit on a log
And be spellbound
In pearl early light
Turning in low fog.
White tendrils curl
Up from earth,
Ghosts churning
White over winter
Fields.
Not a sound.
How to consume
This crop, this yield?
Sit on a log, be
Spellbound.

Form Fills

Form fills a
Pull of potential
And rain falls.
Rain falls on what
Will be because
Rain fell.

Opera Logic

In opera, wars end
In strolls among flowers,
Coruscating country folk--
Strife flees a jolly
Polka, jokes upon passion, power.
In opera, wars end; hagiarchy
Bends to lovers'
Tears, children praying.
In opera-- fears, betrayal,
Insurrection-- whispers
Snag upon gardens
Over reunion, pardon.
Voices blend --in opera
Wars end.

Surd

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One is
A changing value:
A moment in time;
Zero over itself
Or sum of ourselves.
One from everything

Divided by anything, one;
An incomplete quotient
With a remainder of
Consciousness, or
A complete definition
Eternally underway.
I should mention
Angels here, outside
Math, intuitive, discussing
Human rise and fall.
I hear them say,

"They needn't see us,
They needn't see us
At all."

Bee Friend

Much of what is useful
In me is also in a bee,
And more compactly
Contained despite different
Brain dimensions and
Intentions over zinnias.
Still, we garden together
Again, as we always will,
And remain --as we have
From birth, friends on earth.

I Regain Autumn

Sun speaks after the first
Fall rain leaves streaks
Under a dusty tree and
I regain autumn --it
Says this to me.

Silver Clock

I clean a silver clock
Tarnished with worry,
Things to see to, blunders,
Hurried duties, and find
That distinctive, cool
Brightness under,
Reset its hands.
It happens easily,
Usually at three:
One sees silver hair,
Someone seated
A certain way in a
Chair, alert, ready,
Honest, behind a
Silver tea tray and
One falls in love.

Rahima

Unexpected always,
Like wild strawberries
Or lupine in dunes
Appear and hold earth together,
You walk with an open book
Beyond the brim of my hat.
I look.
"It's only a mystery," you say.
Yes, it is certainly that:
You on the path to
Rahima, bright day;
Me, trimming escallonia;
Detectives on separate ways
In an old universe
That still glistens.
You speak.
I listen.
"This, I am more.
Something else that is more."
Hair full of fairylamps,
Downward flutter of fingertips,
A gesture stirring stellar dust,
And I believe you,
I must.

What Bucket List?

Why I am laughing:
My hearing's gone,
My nerves are shot,
My bucket is empty
And I hate these sandals.
There are worse definitions
Of happiness.

Perhaps Because I Have Done This Before

Each moment contains
Some quality of the next
In continuum --in text,
An enjambment, as rain

Stores starlight

In opalescent fog.

Morning, birds
Mutter in hedges,
Silence is
Broken by a barking dog
And this span loses edges
To rising mist.
New worlds are
Made of this: calm uncertainty
That will grow
Wings, feathers, fur;
From this weather
Occur, live, be,
And roam the future
Of memory.

Lake Berryessa

Berryessa was late to work this morning
As we drove east from San Francisco.
She crossed Interstate 80 in an embarrassed
Thirteen-mile-long glob of water and wildlife.
Last night, Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival put
A strain on her hydroelectrics and lights flickered.
Her alarm clock failed, and she woke up real late.
She was trying to get back to Napa and 
Lay herself against the Monticello Dam
So the music could go on, so Tom Petty could
Be a Heartbreaker yet again and close the show.
It's only nine o'clock now, so I don't know
If she made it, but we waded through --we
Got home --and found out the car likes fish.
 

Cosmohydraulics

Some old idea echoes
Amid stars, rides
Nightfall down and 
Rapids into sea.
An illusive light
Of things to be (f)rollicks
In our destiny.

Saturday I Sang

Saturday, I sang to a
Baby. I sang notes.
She sang back to me,
Then fell asleep.
Each note keeps its
Own indelible length
And gentleness is
Our greatest strength.

Anticipating Autumn

Sunlight heating our
Dry back pavers:
Summer exhaled 
Into colder, rarified air,
Scent, events signed into
Rills, veins,
Constricting stems--
Leaf-filled fissures,
Menhirs, warlockstones and
Old paths up the escarpment.
Against ground and time
Sharper light gilds rose leaves
And remains there.

Anima

I am made, as
You are, from
The stuff of stars,
Am more, as 
You are more,
Than an echo 
Of predators,
History --you
Are evolving
A mystery well
Worth solving.

Peace Garden

Under a sign routed
By a younger man,
Children nailed dreams,
Strung wooden beads
And wired hope on
Dawn-bleached palings.
Plantings came and went
But, despite failings,
Successes ensued:
Volunteers, years of
Oddments, seed-bearing
Birds made old
Dreams come true.

What A Beautiful Flower

Where love evolves a code
Displayed in daylilies, seasons
Solve equations under trees.
On her blackboard, results
Appear, these --my relation
To this scheme is here:

Beans, I Think

Winding higher on
Trellis or mind, all
Lives inquire, climb,
Bend and send 
Tendrils into time.

(1915-2001)

                                                                   {With love and admiration to mothers on Mothers' Day}

When her hearing went
She often said,"I can hear you
But I can't tell what you're saying."
At her kitchen table
We watched a storm pound over
The olive orchard--
Sunlight fled the field
Crossed the creek and
Dark filled the window,
Then flashed blinding blue
With thunder to the bone.
When the room unrattled
She laughed, "I heard that.
I just couldn't tell what it said."
I wish again that her hearing
had been better because
I'd love to know.

States Uncertain And Certain

Subatomic particles
Exist outside defined
Gates like thoughts that
Come to those who wait,
Step outside the moment
And remember what
They are made of.

43-Year-Old Crack Up

When Dianne and Veronica saw me
On the front stoop with suddenly no
Mustache, they ran over from their
House in socks and cracked up,
Which caused our own son to crack up,
Which made Norma crack up too.
It was 1971 and we cracked up
Easy, but I grew my mustache
Back so people would take me
Seriously --not sure it worked.

Hymn To A Cosmic Clock

Like a clock,
Time must include
Spring and escapement--
Lest all at once unwind--
In planetary paths, blue iris
Swirls and bearded falls
Under astringent harmonies
Sung in moonlight and sun.
After rain it opens and,
In its time, is done.

Motion And Inertia Are

At every point
Motion and inertia are
Affected directly
Or obliquely by
Every object in
The universe.
To move or stop
Moving is to
Feel it all --all.

Bee Daughter

When she was little,
Learning words,
We would consult the
Garden and see
What was what.
"Bee", I said, and
She repeated:
"Bead" --delighted
Some beads had wings
And flew around.
I never corrected her
And still step outside
And say, "hello bead."
She grew up, flew
Away, but her 
Vocabulary remains.

Big Dang Bang

In our modest station, we hear
Only the inside of
Creation, nothingness eroded, unlike
God, whose first thought 
Exploded --yes, into stars!
So all thought, and ours, is done
As variation on that one.

Remembering June

A vine will bind a trellis or
Its own stem or empty air
And find no difference in 
Them, but share a reeling
Dance with earth, feeling
Time leave old growth
Behind to orbit, bend and
Let light subtend the mind.

Bark Borer

 

 

I have opened too many boxes,
Insides redolent of correspondence
Long closed, glue and dust,
Old collodion, lives closed,
Whittled pegs, strings,
Things cinched in stiff ribbon,
Parts. Paraffin.
I weary of the irreparable.
And so look beyond bottom drawers,
Basements, to beating hearts,
Out of webs,
Out of the past.
Is it
Time present or time preferable?
Much happens over what
Happened last.
Something one
Must decide:
To gather clues; to reason,
Open boxes from inside;
To be, and be reason applied;
To contain a search
Assembled in mystery.

Found-Poem: new flowers (Normasource)

Norma has had the flu! But she got out today and inspected her garden. She sent photos from her phone and a message --a message typical of a directness I can seldom approach in poetry. I reproduce it intact:

"new flowers:

I raked leaves over the bulbs, then the bulbs came up and look how they pushed the leaves up with them."

Gate

Bright jasmine on
Old palings, a
Treeline echoed
In clouds: things
Solid and things
Bleached in light,
In wonder, unreached
Heights, attention--
Unnoticed dances.
Things sing loud
In nature to
The mind and yet
We just don't
Get it all.
Left behind?
Not far, not wrong.
Grown in chances,
Survival is cyclic,
That's all, a song.

Lisa's Dragon

From chrysalid oak imagined
In the stuff of stars, swirling
Eddies, dreamers swimming
In enchanted channels,
Lisa's dragon emerged --
Underway amid wind-whipped
Towers in the sea, and
Higher among cosmic hours.
It beckons above waves--
Waves to you, waves to me.