Swimming Whole

He turns to kiss the stone

on which he sits with sun

drenched lips as dragonflies skitter

orange and green splotches

of iridescence across the tempting

water. A blue canopy shimmering

overhead smiles the day into being.

Showing their capacity for infinite patience,

an assembly of massive East County granite gods

solemnly whispers permission as head-first

with a ‘whoop’ and shout

he, now no longer content to only

watch and wait, but gorging

ecstatically on this precise moment

leaps like a cougar onto innocent prey

and catapults into the pool

until toes scrape a rocky bottom.

                                                LONE ELK

           I see the lone elk standing so still, so tall just beyond a ridge underneath

the slender crescent moon. A silvery patina coats his tan shoulders as my breath

is taken from me in this moment of first recognition. He’s looking out over the sprawl of Los Angeles as if he owns the city and is orchestrating the welter of activity, where in his penetrating gaze, the whole chaotic cacophony somehow makes sense. It’s as if this moonlight in which he bathes offers a portal into the other-worldly human realm for which he has no words yet feels in his sinews

and in his sturdy loins the power, the yearning, the confused inchoate hoping

of this strange human race.

             

             Elk knows that the moon he was born under more than three decades ago on that other ridge overlooking the blue shining water that never stops continues to river and quiver through his life even now where everything he hears, smells, sees and tastes is simply felt as ease-filled truth guiding him always.

              

              From these lunar understandings, Elk’s animal wisdom and felt sense of kindness emerging from these two rocky ridges, somehow the scurrying creatures below, these people, are slowly, very very slowly, beginning to remember their own subtle ways of knowing..of being, of loving, of becoming animal under the moons from which they were born.

              And Elk, shimmering serenity and standing at ease, lifts his beautiful head once more to see and to savor the crescent glowing above.

      Dissolve or Solve?

We are all dissolving, and someone,

(lots of someones in point of fact)

ain’t liking this act of mother

nature, nor the scary fallout,

one homebound goddamn bit.

Some storm their State Capital

in midst of the great pandemic

acting all immortal, omniscient

in their ignorance with six guns

on their hips, as anguished psyches

and weary bodies partake in strident

protests, flames and virus smoldering

on snarling unmasked lips, they drift

dangerously straight towards bottom 

away from those fearful resolutions

built from facts and common sense

these hellbent citizens

of this latest great dissolution

do selfishly resist.

All Day

A lone elk

Has taken

Over

My heart.

He stands

Tall and still

Gazing out

From his

Ridge of ease

And rock

Onto forest

And lake 

Below 
Where fellow

Animals graze

And doze,
Lazing all day....

God’s tongue-
two fawns, in sun
shining, sipping
from the round lake....

       After Throwing Away

After the pebble is tossed sidearm 

onto the patient round lake, yes, 

after the swift release as slowly 

a wafer of schist settles into that bottom 

of silt, of green weeds decaying forgotten, 

and after these rings these molecules

of water radiate from center towards shore, 

and after this stillness replaces 

all struggle, then two fawns shyly

blossom from bracken onto moist sand,

tip-toeing and shining and sipping 

from what is refreshing and is holding 

everything fast after what’s been promised 

to last in so many words dries up, dissolves 

inside memory alone and like a stone 

far-flung finally into depths of before, 

is lost.  

                                              UNCLE OTAY

There he stands across the two lane road beyond the single ancient oak tree, 

and high above, portly yet well-muscled, avuncular and verdant under April’s ambivalent skies, rain one day, golden sunshine the next. He welcomes us

like a couple of errant nephews truant from junior high and eager to try out

a new slingshot and these cheap binoculars under the friendly gaze

of Uncle Otay, and what’s best, without threat of stifling rules or stern adult oversight.

Whispering with the wind down the canyon to our right, we hear his only mandate 

is to be safe, to wander freely, to take some chances when he might not be looking, 

to stick together here in his magic garden of meadowlarks, swirling hawks, Tecate cypress spilling down distant ravines, cougar prints embedded in mud, the scary 

but exciting possibility of rattlesnakes lurking now that weather is warming, wildflowers bursting like fireworks everywhere you look and huge hunks of granite guiding a secret waterfall as it tumbles wildly, noisily into a deep chasm engraved 

into Uncle’s almost infinite depths. And he wishes us to be enchanted often 

in our wandering.

Many hours later and after wolfing down cheese sandwiches and handfuls

of cashews sprinkled with raisins, we rest on warm boulders overlooking

the rushing stream beneath and quietly ponder this long day of roaming

with all senses deliciously ablaze. Now Uncle asks us only to thank the many denizens of his kingdom for graciously accepting our presence here and to please close the front door quietly as we step off his green slopes away from the thick meadows, 

these towering stacks of gray rocks and his uncanny calm, his soothing silence, 

past the gnarled leafy oak tree here at his feet and into our waiting car parked 

along the two lane road.

Removing our boots and packs but not our joy nor our well-nourished hearts,

our shimmering sturdy bodies weary, ready for home, we look back and up

once more and in the settling light of dusk we just make out our Uncle’s wink,

his easy smile, as growing darkness kisses his balding crown.

      Span of Homespun Spinning

Our life spins and spins around a fiery star,

93 million miles from you, us and ours’--

(when you stop to think, it’s dizzingly far)

and then there’s these simple days,

each day (so much nearer yes)

spun like molten glass

whose colors drip and blend

as memory weaves and mends,

then often slips around a forgotten

bend while we don’t see nor hear

as daylight drops onto verdant tufts

and sunlit scents born of time’s

strange span, its vague timelessness

where children barefoot plopping tumbling

whirling dervishing

rolling through untimed afternoons

(stumbling too)

over endless fields of fresh mown grass

blooming orbs of clover building

a fragrant home

for vagrant bumblebees and our untamed hopes

soaring leaping 
buzzing roaming

forever spinning 
fiercely fast.

   A Poem, It Isn’t

Today I will write no poems

Yes, a respite from

the joy and surprise,

the rigors of language

but instead shall listen

intently for birdsong, sip

iced coffee laden 
with cream

and wonder once more

why this gracious sky

always above us

is always so

spacious,

so welcoming,

so blue.

Contentment-

the true home

of fruitful living

and the subtle 

goal of all

non-striving....

 A Morning Surprise 

Light sifts like soft violin

music onto each needle

of these pine trees outside 

my upstairs window. 

Slowly they stretch reaching 

for beautiful notes, smiling 

and shimmering into morning’s 

free concert of love. 

Quietly moving they refrain 

from disturbing the tuxedoed 

musicians above.  

Now the whole grove stands

up as an audience of one

and offers a golden applause

while birdsong mingles 

with dawn’s generous 

unfolding 

into this wondrous 

melodious surprise. 

     Heavenly Earthly Feast

One night sitting on the living 

room couch, eating peanut butter

with crackers and carrots, waiting

for a friend to call (she’s always late)

while pondering life and some recent

snafus impeding things overall, I heard God 

declare (it was them I swear!)

‘Peter you’re too goddamn modest’

and right then and there, honest, I

decided to listen as they went on 

to state ‘it’s all holy, every bit of it, 

and you’ve known that for years,

this brown couch, that air purifier, 

the cell phone you’re typing on right now, 
your tardy amiga Ana and the annoyance with her,
hell even this crunchy peanut butter is as sacred 
as me..in fact it is me!’ About then I wiped the peanut butter off my lips and took a slow look around the room without 
my glasses. I really looked if you know what I mean 
and damn if they weren’t right! Apparently I didn’t need 
to hear more because then a silence enveloped all of it 
like light sifting down from the full moon onto a round lake at midnight soothing, uplifting everything and I circled back 

to savoring each and every morsel of my holy snack 

so help me God....

        WHAT REMAINS

Like that washboard, potholed 

dusty road he likes to traipse along

he’d been scraped so clean 

by Life that only 

a beautiful audacity 

remains 

where nothing, nothing at all, 

is missing.

     On Proctor Valley Road 

Nothing is missing here on this dusty

washboard road, potholed, scraped

clean of vegetation, mountains rising 

left and right, sun pouring heat and light 

onto everything in sight, mid-afternoon 

there’s no need to speak, senses alert, 

nourished by place I kneel in dirt, 

one eye out for hawk another 

for rattlesnake, then suddenly both spy

the fattening moon above a distant ridge 
on this, nature’s feast day, a gift 
bridging my body my mind to ease 
and quiet exploring in moments 

of sweet stillness surpassing 
all understanding. 

Dissolution

We are all

Dissolving 

And someone 

(Lots of someones

In point of fact)

Ain’t liking

It one damn

Bit.

So we storm

The State 

Capital in midst 

Of this great

Pandemic

Acting all immortal

Six guns on our hips

As our psyches

And our bodies

In spite of strident

Protests and fire
on our lips
Float slowly sure

Towards bottom 

Of that fearful

Resisted solution.