Ruby
Her presence felt and much as heard,
just beyond my morning’s read,
my book is slowly lowered,
Companionable (I think) in our meet.
Eye-to-eye now, face-to-face,
her look putting me in my place,
the ruby throat, breast of iridescent green,
the impossible cadence of her wing.
Her patience is long since gone…
I forgot to put her breakfast on.
Her favorite service is the red vase,
trimmed with yellow flowers at the base,
my apologies offered, I arise,
I do not wish to antagonize.
Service retrieved, decorum restored,
she deigns to dine, but thinks me a bore(?).
There is no other courtesy,
she offers no “thank you”.
But I do.
The Eagle and the Mallard
First morning light, the lake walking by,
the Eagle’s dance, the Mallard’s dive,
at times Adagio, then Allegro come alive,
one will live, one might well now die.
On winter’s morn, o’er winter’s snow,
on foot alone, the morn’s light first glow,
I approach the lake, it’s flat calm illusion,
the growing ripple sets, heard as well as seen.
The Eagle glides and climbs,
the pattern figure-eight,
climbing turns the broad loop,
the ripple’s center and the eight’s
precisely the same.
Eagle’s low glide just past the center,
Mallard rises from the deep,
a moment’s rest, a moment’s breath,
a moment’s eye on Eagle, track the twisting wreath.
Eagle’s path remains an eight,
the low center still remains,
but each half-eight’s path is shifted,
no approach line is the same.
Eagle’s dance an act of Beauty,
aerial petals, creative grace,
the dance enchanting, but deadly,
death the price for Eagle’s place.
A quarter-hour passes on,
an observer only stand I,
the balletic martial dance in which
one will live and one might die.
My patience is not that of either,
and other duties my time require,
I continue on my own path,
this tableau is not my hour.
And yet…
The Eagle is the eagle, his continuance this requires,
should Mallard somehow escape this fate,
then what the Eagle’s continued hours?
What of us with other ways our daily bread to make,
surely a certain reverence for lifefullness we take?
In order to sustain our own?
First morning light, the lake walking by,
the Eagle’s dance, the Mallard’s dive,
at times Adagio, then Allegro come alive,
one will live, one might well now die.
Unfettered
Her parent’s delight apparent,
a brother’s and sister’s too,
on hands and knees no longer,
close gravity now unfettered,
upright she knows the world anew.
Another sister, another brother come,
at home and through the door
of the big house on the corner,
a world grown even larger,
steps light, now sure, carry her there.
The girl-almost-young-woman, another decade on,
five sisters and three brothers, the corner house grown small.
Blond and blue-eyed fair, among hair of black and eyes of brown,
airy step, gait serene,
her feet glide along the ground.
Two doors down there is a boy, blue eyes, red hair,
a crooked grin, a pony in the yard.
She’s of an age, he’s of an age,
both do not find two doors down difficult
for walking out together, first steps of what will be built.
But two wars first come between them,
the young woman has to wait, patiently yet ready
for those first steps together,
her walk into their future tentative
but courageous, her tread steady.
Her stride now knowing, determined,
the pathway before her wide,
her children and her children’s children,
she leads ahead, she guides beside.
Then other’s other paths are chosen,
some far, some farther, some near.
And then the first step to falter,
her blue-eyed boy is gone.
How soon this moment has arrived.
Can it be so soon?
Can it be so soon?…
Less sure now, she must walk on alone.
yet small comforts come as her next
and their next accompany her,
her world now getting smaller,
it’s their steps that lead her home.
And then much smaller yet.
Each successive step more unsteady, hard-made,
then the time, at last that time,
the last step is taken.
Imprisoned.
The prison of her body, the prison of her mind,
a moment’s clarity in her dark twilight, her
last wish to arise and walk one more time.
And then released she slips away, her
prison door is opened wide,
her final wish now granted, she walks…
Unfettered.
Anderson Ridge
The canyon is close, the track in the shade,
once past the quarry, unnatural sounds fade.
Passing the quarry is crossing a bridge,
a different world waits up on Anderson Ridge.
The great volcano is east, The Knot’s in the west,
a doe’s in the meadow, tall firs on the crest,
Manzanita and Madrone below, perhaps Pepperidge
too, above the cloud-capped knife of Anderson Ridge.
Every day carries surprise, this one does too,
enveloping green shadow peeled away to view
the enormous scar, an injured, naked pitch,
the old pathway is so different to Anderson Ridge.
Paradise, stripped of its timber, tortured the land,
the verdant green forest, Paradise banned.
It’s not Peabody’s coal train, not his pocket enriched,
but Muhlenberg County has come to Anderson Ridge.
In Memoriam: John Prine
The Widening Turn
The ever-widening turn, the pendulum’s constant gain,
waves grow ever taller, deep valleys carve the plain.
Obscured, even gone(?) the center, dampened motion/emotion reviled,
the middle heedless (or perhaps wary?) of voices that beguile.
What then is this season? What purpose is fulfilled?
A casting away of stones? Not gathering together to heal…and be healed?
Must there be a fanatic’s heart? One so impassioned and inflamed?
Give way then to the growing rant? And thus we each are maimed?
As for my children’s children, I’ll not engage their ear,
their bright, sweet land of childhood, that brief time I hold so dear.
But to my children solely, their wisdoms my own so near,
my epiphany a moment cold: I’ll not outlive the current fear.
What then’s my best to give to them, my brief future’s path to trod?
The prophet’s voice comes unhurried, in a harried time becalm’d:
Be kind to all, act justly,
walk humbly ever on…
Be kind to all, act justly,
walk humbly ever on.
In Memoriam: W.B.Yeats, Pete Seeger.
Which do I prefer?
Moonrise creeps across the desert floor,
night alight, alive.
Sunset, lit hilltops alone a dwindling corps,
day faded, fallen.
Which do I prefer?
The soft, white light against night sky,
thus tinged blue?
Or Saffron, Corn, Gamboge, oe’r ground
an earthly hue?
Which do I prefer?
Alone between two worlds, indecision hovers.
I find
its weight bearable. I feel vital, buoyant
within its pause.
And in that pause
Coyote Chorus provides endless Evensong.
