Thursday, December 31, 2015

Arcs, Circles, Sphere, Here

An arc of ice and frost
Is never lost in
An old steel wheelbarrow
Where arcs embrace.
We can trace the
Length of a second to
186000 miles.
Does light dreamed
Upon things dreamed
Travel as far?


There are arcs imagined:
"I do set my bow
In the cloud...a covenant
Between me and
Earth."
Such is birth and rebirth,
A dream learned here
Lights an ecosphere.

Happy New Year!!

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Fog



When we need to
Find our way in
Fog --fixed bearing
And speed are
Mixed in magnetic
Climb along 
Earth-- a function
Of time in equation
Yields destination
And  rebirth.

Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Homeric Gods




Entered unscripted into our
World,  devoid  of  form  or
Bias --judgement encrypted
In thought, life, wood, water--
In savant, worm, mind and
Mindless alike strike schism
Or closure;  our composure
Bends --to what end?  Soon
Naked, scaled or rockbound
In storm  or  full May moon
We gain devices  in stars  to
Bless or break  what is ours.
As solid dreams  are we  in
Cosmos  moved,  theology 
Can  always  be  improved.
 

Saturday, December 5, 2015

Snapshot, Relatives


We do not number among
Immediate kin but true
Relatives seldom do --
A cousin then, or sister and,
Like that solitary mister who
Climbed off his pedestal to
Sit with her,  adopted
Us, and we, her.
She is also related to Lincoln
If he knows what's good for him. 


Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Pumphouse Poem

A door, veiled in light,
Unlikely refuge
Where reason wakes.
In there, one makes 
Mistakes but, oddly,
Learns from successes
Too --and prefers them.
Dim recesses accept
Things that fit 
And limit how lost
They get --and why
And where --which 
Is  why  I  often 
Find myself in there.

Thursday, November 12, 2015

Cognitive Distortion And Tinnitus


We have only this moment
Sparkling in our sudden
Selves, dissolving as a bit
Of frost to lose in autumn sunshine.
Whether mine or yours to use
Or not, it is enough to
See it do that --run under
Our ringing ears, our fears,
Enduring in distorted years
And yet mind drives, eyes see.
Let us, let me, behave wisely.


Thursday, November 5, 2015

Meditation Between Past and Future


Life selects
Certain molecules.
Even in this thought
A trail of atoms,
Disrupted, changes
The past.
I hope the forward
Scope of meditation
Is likewise vast.

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Enduring Dragon


Your enduring dragon ,
Invisibly yoked, led 
Thunderheads over
Here in the night.
At first light he flicked
His mighty tail and
Snapped his traces,
Kicked away and sailed
On to other places.


Sunday, October 4, 2015

Ratio Soliloquy


Paradise is 
A garden walled
In dream, hopes,
Secrets yet to be
Revealed where absence
Only means something
Concealed awaits and
Hell --a truth learned
Too late-- waits too.
To think, feel, love what is
Succinct and ampliative,
Our instincts must be
Creative, not destructive.
Yes, but we live our days in
A world alive --not thin or
Brittle-- within us, in us,
Each a world done in little.
We have only to reach
Out to its onward sphere
And help, help others
Find happiness here.



Sunday, September 20, 2015

Musee Mecanique

[musee mecanique]

Behind beveled glass,
And oak veneer,
She is sad sometimes--
An orchestrion
Rattled, buzzing inside:
Something in dark where
Whippens work; something
In dark over pinblock and bridge,
Ridges, racks of
Brass and ash --spruce
Shim slipped from
A soundboard crack,
Levers lost in
Danger and promise.
What dark entails:
A derailed track
Searching after a
Spring fails. I press.
A little felted hammer
Strikes no reply.
Sometimes she is sad
And can't remember why.

Saturday, September 5, 2015

Kitchen Porch Repairs



Replacing purlin, post,
Where rot most appears,
One climbs a house's
Heart from here, alone--
With tools and tapes,
Embraced by redwood bones
Where weather chews--
To review foxing soffits
And incursions upon
A porch's purpose
To protect-- protect
Where life goes on.
It holds onto one
Until the job is done.

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Something I Wrote Emma and Ygraine


Sometimes I dream
Of departed loved ones,
And like to think,
When the dream is over,
We all return to our
Different mornings
And get on with life.

Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Travertine



Eyes long gone,
And what they saw,
Caught under crystal--
Ancient light compressed
In stone, deposited
There-- their tongues
Lapping waters
Turned to desert
Long ago between
Brown and yellow are
Black veins in
Travertine that tell
Of lakes, rivers
Come and gone,
Prairies carbonized,
Wanderers tribalized
And much to read
In a pebble.

Thursday, August 6, 2015

Despite Drought


Despite drought, clouds
Venture out and nest
Among  mountains, 
Pile over arid plains,
Do their best at summer
Rain but steam away.
They write a promise
On our pavers: another
Day..... another day.


Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Visitor



Hello you,
Visitor under 
Shadow where
Summer sun has 
Yet to go -- hello.
Among clay pots
Cooled after night,
While pavers still release
A gentle chill, be
At peace and know
Welcome --hello. 


Wednesday, July 15, 2015

It Is Us




Force transferred, warmed
Into wind, sun,
Into waves, surf,
Is a voice of stars, formed
As ours --a chorus.
By this calculus, if
An echo hears an echo,
It is us, it is us.

Monday, July 6, 2015

Garcia Bend 1949




I could hear the
Heavy bray of
Barges --sound
Delivered to
A child whose
World enlarged
Along a river.
The other side
Is still wild.

Friday, June 26, 2015

One Direction




Releasing wild things
Releases us too.
You drew a
Limniscate: tension,
Turned upon its curves,
Crossed its quiet center,
Reentered to pass
Through me and off,
Exhaled and set free.

Saturday, June 13, 2015

Portrait At Prospect Point



At cascade edges, silent
Mist is born in roars.
Silent light pours into
Silver salts in albumin.
Then eyes arrayed on
Ledges see and --in
Lenses trained across
Time-- so  do  we .


Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Sweep Second Hand




I can plan the
Contents of an
Hour, know its
Seeds, flowers
And tell where
Rain fell on dust
Where dust sailed
Down in wind.
I can see where
Rain ends, but
What an hour or
Instant is, I can't
Tell, and understand
Eternity as well.

Sunday, May 24, 2015

F=MxA, Redux



Thought and dandelions
Overgrow their own tops
So it's hard to tell where
Either  stops  -- then
At a living confluence,  
They  join  in  wind,
Take flight and influence
 Likely never ends.

Saturday, May 16, 2015

Sunday Garden Tour




Sunday garden tour talking with
Jim --mostly just sitting
With him in dappling light
Where shadows danced 
Down a breezy tree
To table top in front of
Him and me -- entranced.

Monday, May 4, 2015

In Stone It Is Painted
























Nothing she decrees is
Carved  in  stone -- it is
Painted--  and  one
Sees she alone  knows
Where everything goes.
This whatness sticks to
Rock and rock stays put
Face up on an earthen
Clock of garden days.

Friday, April 24, 2015

Earth Noise



I have listened to
The strange noises
Recorded in this report
And they are the same
Sound my bathroom makes
Late at night because
There is a moose in it.
It is a very friendly
Moose but still, I'm
Beginning to regret
I ever let it in.

**********************
[Repost from Sept.,2011]

Thursday, April 9, 2015

Fire-break [Earning My Keep!]



April and already yellow
Works among green,
Which means we must
Take down trees and
Grind grasses into dust
Along these margins 
Between summer and us
Before summer comes--
Wards against fear,
Fence fires, here, a
Kind of clearing no
One retires from-- threats
The prairie poses and yet
I spare the wild roses.


Wednesday, April 1, 2015

In Order Of Appearance



Sun pinched off
A plume of
Primordial fire
Light-years long
Roars at a
Planet evolving a bird
That names itself
A single
Musical note.


Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Let Us Be As Choo-choos Now

The line winds among
Meadows, mountains,
As rhythm moves us
Through day and night,
Between shadows and
Fountains  of  light,
Between trees and boulders.
Let us be as choo-choos
Now, shoveling steam
Over  our  shoulders.
 

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

My Sixties



Can I leave the past behind?
It returns --never mind--
One learns along the way
That was,  long ago,
And does not go away,
Not tomorrow, today,
Or now, ever -- go?
I'm not clever
Enough to know, but
Hope the past is kind
And careful with our minds.

Thursday, March 12, 2015

Groundwork


An arch where vines
Outline illusion,
Beyond which
Stems curl,
Soldered in pearls
Where fog and
Woodruff fuse,
Compose a circuitry
Of choice and fate--
I am always
A pilgrim at this
Garden gate.



Friday, March 6, 2015

Your Straw Hat

Under distant light, soul
And soul commingle into
Single things that cling as
Planets roll and ring
Ahead of night --and there,
If we wait where all 
Creation resonates, 
Remains a silence
That explains what love
Is: it is ours,  as at
The garden door, your straw
Hat fills up with stars.


Thursday, March 5, 2015

Cloud Fetch



I see my shadow in
Clouds today.
I just love things --what
Else can I say?

Friday, February 27, 2015

Romance Of Modern Horology




I've had senses
A long time.
Used to them.
Some lights dim.
Others flare by these
Fences, fill the sky.
I know time, my
Name, planet, under its
Flame, explores
Eons by season, as do
I, while light pours
Into reason

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Λήθη And a Sensible Hat



River Lethe or Lima,
I chose to remain in
Possession of my brain 
And remembered fire
Rises, sails swell and
Current cannot keep
A vessel locked in hell.

Sunday, February 8, 2015

California Rain At Three



Rain outside our porch
Screen, seen on a 
Sunday years into drought.
She points her camera 
Out because of me.
I spoke of Giverny,
Where it is midnight and
We must catch the light.

Thursday, January 29, 2015

Early Spring, Norma Recharging

Morning finds her
Parting plastered leaves
Over flowers---
They unfurl like
Elfin flags.
She sets the camera down.
Some unseen powers
Snag its lens around

And dream prismatic
Beams to catch her
Studying the ground.

 

Saturday, January 24, 2015

Remembering Them



Far over
Roses
Ghosts
Embrace and
Fill
The sky.

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Roofcat 2





















Roofcat surveys all 
He has no concept of
Owning --owns nothing
Except water in the 
Creek, the shrieking 
Things he eats and 
Catches sunset where
Last it lays on  the 
Roofspine-- asks for 
Nothing of mine from
His high peak so, though
A friend, seldom speaks.





Saturday, January 10, 2015

Only A Few Months



Over the southwest
Field, where new grass
Strives with old and
Yellow light lines
Earth, the blue
Hour lowers.
Air is still cold, but
Soon, birth below
Will lift flowers
And trees must sprout
Their lace of leaves
Across the summer moon.