Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Tuesday, Late Summer
 
Back and shoulders bask, tan
and swim in glad sun’s warming
 
oven. Backyard sizzles late morning
in August heat wave. This spindrift
 
blazes and bursts, shoots hot scintillas
above thirsty red rosebush high into

summer's cerulean sky.

Monday, August 25, 2014

'JUMP'


Would you ever just
Jump ship? Step off
This aircraft carrier,

Gun-metal gray, big
As a small planet,

So precise and on
Top of it all
Always,

And with the endless
Possibilities of mother
Ocean arising beneath

Your fearful body, fall
Into unarmored space
Towards your deeper

Destiny and one small
Tattered and scattered,
Uncertain sailboat?

I would. I have kissed this
Empty air feet-first,
Taken one crazy plunge

Down into the salty, wet
Lips, the seductive chaos
Of life herself.

Meet me here
Soon,


    if you will.

Saturday, August 23, 2014

Saturday Walk at Dusk

Trail crunches
underfoot,
 
Sky darkens
slowly.
 
Breezes soothe,
whisper softly.
 
Headlights shine
brightly down
 
One quiet
road.

Thursday, August 21, 2014

'Nothing Less'

Can you, will you, step
out of this incessant

thought-stream

and hear now
the simmering

murmur of silence

awakening within
the great Silence?

The shy meadow
and limber, grazing
fawn of early Autumn

nestle deep inside
the tangled bracken
and golden forest.

They patiently await
your full unfurling
here, want nothing

less than your blazing,
broken, wholehearted
life.

Saturday, August 16, 2014

'Family Picnic'

She threw out her famous one-liner
at the Elks' picnic last August:

"my father's mother is my sister's
brother and don't you say 'nothing
'bout it!"

We quickly asked for seconds
of the too-mayonnaisy lukewarm

potato salad, clutched our recycled
plastic forks and looked down
at cheap watches through dew-like beads

of sweat and the grandkids' cries
like blazing sirens or raucous biting
ants storming across acres of brown grass.

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

'Bowl'

'Bowl'  (thanks to my fellow contemplatives in the Monday night group at the Mission)

I am a chipped and faded pottery bowl
ready to receive a handful of walnuts
from the stocky white frig or perhaps
the day old microwaved burrito smothered
in hot sauce. You on the other hand

are a silky blonde, smooth skinned beauty
queen sadly lacking a slick centerfold
in that miracle of a magazine I discovered
the summer after eighth grade when I could

feel myself grow every day. Sleep was my
favorite food then, as was all food my food.
Inches were added by Fall when high school
began and it was almost disgusting to sense
these changes in viscera, bone and muscle.

To be and become those changes so outside
my control.

Now my back aches every morning after trying
stupidly to add sprinting to the running workouts,
I hobble for morning coffee and lean in tired
towards an unsubtle brokenness, I am in need

of a tow truck more days than not, and the Subaru's
lights weirdly have a life of their own and stay on
all night unless the battery is unplugged, but Triple A
says, Premier membership or not, I've worn out my

welcome and gratitude has undeniably taken over
my life like the jagged uneven edge of the brown
bowl quiet before me.


Sunday, August 10, 2014

wandering thru woods

when have you
felt in your eager
pink ears,

the softest leaf
of whispering
hope?

Friday, August 1, 2014

'tis pleasing

‘tis pleasing


to close
one’s eyes


often,


resting slow
and easy,


quietly
cozy,


(some days
dozing)


in a lazy
hammock


of the mind.

SOUTHWARDS IN SONG

did I say the time we wrote a song together in the old green ’51 Chevy driving down to
San Francisco? dad actually grinning at the wheel and I the big boy riding co-pilot
with great maps spread across my happy lap, the day unfolding like a fan of peacock
feathers through the bug stained windshield, leaving Portland at 3 or 4 in the morning


because we all were too excited to sleep and so let's pile in the car and head south
through the dark night and the many miles into the magical beautiful arching city
and the Golden Gate---


Oh! the Golden Gate, you orange sun emerging strong and sudden from bluest sky
over infinite waters! and our chorus of song belting out ‘California Here We Come’
crossing the great bridge which seemed to represent happiness or a kind of freedom
not known at home—


and smiles, there were true smiles and laughter spontaneous like a fountain bursting
from us then in the packed car. yes we had these family vacation times when the
screaming and god-awful tensions of sad desultory lamentations at home dissipated


for a blessed week or two at a blessed time and I looked at him soft and breathed in my
father's face and being, then even his eyes were soft too, he was a good and safe man
for this while who loved me and his life, which was not always the case back north


in the grim unforgiving rain and the day to day of worry and wear and shoes left out on
living room floors by seven year old ungrateful bastards, this may tell why I shall always
love the city of steep hills on the bay with its Chinatown, beatnik bookstores, Italian


coffeehouses and romantic cable cars pulling us higher and higher towards a slice of
heaven where ease and joy and even singing at the table over pasta and bread with real
butter in the comforting smooth wooden booths of North Beach prevail without threat of
punishment or shame.

Halfway Up the Canyon (October 1977)



The stranger and I sit in haunting stillness.
We are weary and alert here, held within
the immense womb of the Grand Canyon.


Today we hiked halfway up from the river at
its bottom where I’d camped after a long day
of hot steep descent on the South Kaibab trail.


Now, as the vastness beneath begins to transform
in the purplish inky light of deepening dusk,
an immense explosion bursts through this quiet


from high above us and echoes through miles
of empty space to pierce the early evening.


Two male bighorn sheep face to face on the narrow
cliff crash their essential weapons, curved horns
of thick animal bone like great warrior-gods


fighting for their lives and for a beguiling goddess
as she awaits the bloodied victor in a nearby cave.


Astonished and entranced we reverently welcome
this miracle of the wild, when suddenly a wind
crashes down these majestic cliffs onto our amazed


and weary bodies, blows off the stranger’s wide
brimmed hat, and sends it fast and far into the
darkening night towards the canyon’s endless


open arms where our unseen futures, hidden
in plain sight, silently await with wryly gracious
knowing smiles.