Tending, Tasting

She lingers blooming 

In the garden

Early

Beige bathrobe, tousled 

Hair, English Breakfast tea

In thankful hands,

Soaking

Savoring 

Simmering

As she loiters

Within

And underneath 

Sunshine’s showerspray 

Of delicious warmth;

Her mind’s a frisky

Hummingbird sipping

Fingers of tasty nectar 

From this luscious earth.  

   Proclamation (after Billy Collins)

“..You are the dew in the morning grass

and the burning wheel of the sun..” ~~ Billy Collins

You are the dew in the morning grass

and the burning wheel of the sun.

You are the plane ticket to Istanbul

and the red wheelbarrow in the rain.

However, you are not the bushel of October apples,

the shopping list on the kitchen counter,

nor the movie we watched last night.

And surely you are not the cabin in the forest.

It is impossible that you are the cabin in the forest.

It could be that you are the lilies lazing in the pond,

perhaps even the café on the foreign plaza,

but never shall you be the rainstorm on the mountain.

Your reflection in the storefront window shows

you neither are the kayak floating swiftly on the stream

nor the neck of the single swan in moonlight.

You might wonder how of the world’s plethora of images

I however am the BIC pen scribbling along a blank page

and the chagrin of lukewarm coffee in a favorite cup.

I may also be the soft comfort of the bathrobe,

the airline’s app today not working

and the bag of tangerines at bottom of the frig.

I am also the unwashed Honda in the driveway,

the Melaleuca freshly pruned,

but never the poem pilfered from Billy Collins.

But let us be clear as the ring of a bell at dusk,

you are and shall remain the dew on the morning grass

and the burning wheel of the sun,

and also let us not forget, these wildflowers sprinkled

like candles or favorite candies across the morning grass.

  Tending Bonds

Tenderness 

is tinder

for a bondfire

of healing what’s been 

bruised, wounded

and neglected, 

reeling still

through terrain

where our lives

have often wandered. 

These lives

that yearn

to flower

under rainfall 

grow taller 

and more 

spacious—

that ache 

with thirst

for bond-fires

that soothe

and nourish 

by burning walls

no longer needed

so we might 

awaken

at every imagined

border

to cross 

all the way

over

into realms

of new arrival,

times that gleam

stone-green 

brightly sheen

with thriving. 

                                THIRST

She sits almost singing, a soft humming amidst ferns and wild mustard on stream’s glistened

edge. He skips stones flat as flapjacks that shine like newly minted coins across rolling water.

Images simmer inside them, sensations and pictures of thirst, its wordless thrust towards

quenching abound in their bones and their heads. Like squads of mice or the inchoate earth

trembling moments before an earthquake—that nefarious big one—crashes under us ripping

our land, no one left standing after its inhuman, monstrous majesty.

He tosses the final rock of the morning. She ceases her almost singing at once. Above

surrounding them a forest of Douglas Firs stretches forever, yet now has nearly dissolved into

vague quiet. The trees seem to beckon for something from this couple, perhaps a gift, a

message, primal gesture. They too may be creatures of thirst, it’s uncertain.

She stands sauntering towards him; her ring finger held high towards these trees. He gazes

at water, then sky; knows the blue dome above is asking as well. Again, for what he lacks any

knowledge.

Now she’s kissing the crown of his head, now kneading his brawny brown shoulders. She smiles,

feeling the calm of a wordless response—his breathing, this softening muscle, a need to do

nothing at all.

Their thirst for each other quickens like daybreak as forest quivers and sky sighs in tender

breezes; what’s moving towards quenching becomes fully slaked. The mice return to a far realm

hidden from humans. The incipient temblor retreats deep into earth, falls gradually inert into

soil’s welcomed stability.

Stream tumbles and rolls in its ancient ongoing way; he and she arrive where they started yet

easy and still underneath forest and ferns, this wondrous sky of contentment where all now

abide well nourished, and simple. So very simple....

    First Taste

Singing to no one but these mourning doves,

she plants both feet in her garden,

gazes up at the fig tree soaked

in morning mist 

then plucks

summer’s first tomato 

from its blazing bush 

and with eyes

shining like the mother dove 

bites into plump sweet 

crimson flesh.  

may your prayer welcome

and nourish a heart-strong dawn

vibrant with arrival’s

fresh embrace….

        CONSPIRATORIAL 

“…any idea of yourself must include a body surrounding a song.”  Mark Strand.

After a small inconsequential dinner you sit, somewhat satisfied, in a room adjacent to where you’d dined with the strange couple invited once again by your host. Conversation 

is at first stilted, then after considerable awkward shifting in comfortable plaid chairs, 

becomes gradually alive, crackling like the logs 

of birch in her stone fireplace. At one point, glass of warm whiskey in her hand, the woman says 

‘any idea of this evening must address our three bodies here gathered in a dark room entranced 

by fire enveloped within a hush of friendly forgetting.’ I nod, exhale softly, sip my whiskey,

and wondering if snow is continuing to fall,

ask our host for my coat. 

               PALS

 

I lied, confessing to him that my best friend Rich

had been killed over Christmas in a car wreck

in Portland up north. 

The Vice Principal softened

hearing my ‘news’, with a sliver of hope 

I thought ‘I’m in the clear’. My transgression

at the new high school, busted for smoking

by P.E. coach Fred, suddenly not so severe.  

Nor the punishment as well, ‘I’m not dead’

I yelled after school to Dave Minor

my partner in crime. 

Remembering this now 60 years later,

morning coffee in hand, my thumb 

caresses the lip of this cup, 

the cup painted with Scottie dogs you Rick 

brought as a gift from England; and now

you are gone, killed in your ‘70’s 

by the ravages of Parkinson’s 

while here on my couch I weep

and smile; whispers freely sailing in wind

recalling our beautiful boyhood escapades.  

Burnout with a baseball, mitts thump 

as we heave the orb hard as we can, 

sitting Summer afternoons on the curb

passing vanilla wafers back and forth 

like beads on a rosary, chugging them

down with a shared carton of cold Darigold milk,

                        howling gleefully those volcanic belly laughs

                        as we watched Gorgeous George crash onto Killer Kowalski—

                        how we marveled at these fake wrestling matches

                        on my parents bedroom tv. 

                        Yes my pal, we wandered then within our own astonishing universe,

those infinite confines of pleasure, magic, mischief and love.

I salute you Rick, may we grin and guffaw, munch chuckling

often on a plethora of treats, the horsehide hardball 

galloping as it burns blazing forever

between us. 

 Awake Poem/Mother

(after Lew Welch)

Through the years of her eyes

an insistent sparkle

blossomed her ongoing story

of ancient griefs

mating with unconscious 

pretense and redeeming glory. 

   Ars Poetica

And what’s best 

when we read poetry

is to avert that scoundrel haste

then baste and bathe

in the infinity of taste

that spirals around

the tongue signaling 

shimmers 

of extraordinary 

delights. 

Then,

if we’ve ample pluck

perhaps too 

if graced 

by Lady Luck

we scribble

a poem 

or two..

THE GARDENER AT EIGHTY

Tom, my pal for more

than five decades,

nurtures and tends

a multitude of lives,

midwifing plants into being 

from tiny seed to seedling, 

to flower and fruit, occasionally 

even to tree. Often digs

daily in dirt, moves earth

across land like a painter

contemplating a blank canvas, 

putters quietly with soil under lights

on a bench in the garage

designed by himself. Tom plans

with care tasks each morning,

loves to keep himself

on the move; even mentors

others in the gardening art,

both eyes, two hands, a curious mind

intent on the project today.  

I smile with this vision 

of my dear friend at work 

in this life he sculpts

new growth revealed

with ongoing contentment

that feeds Tom and others,

roots him deeply alive.