Planet Memory
take the canoe thru
rocks
shoals a
sharp bend,
another,
watch out
for that
dead tree
hanging in your face,
keep your
eye on
those
white waves ahead.
now a
delicate,
gaudy
great blue heron
lifts off ahead
&
slowly flaps
its way
aloft
where it finally
soars
over the treetops,
gone.
after the trip,
sleep all afternoon.
the fire
goes out
& all the boys
arrive
&
run away
to the river,
board their canoes
& disappear
around the bend,
laughing &
hallooing.
at night, a thousand
stars.
across the clearing,
the lantern’s shine,
the branches, still,
above.
Huron
azure surf where Hurons
sang—
I lay on a rotted dock
& listened to the wind thru
tamaracks,
dreamed the afternoon away:
faces of friends, near & far,
coming & going,
bustling thru deadlines, trapped
at lights—
peering up to see Orion or
stopping to hear their own hearts
beating.
I saw the relatives at the
funeral,
hot sunny afternoon, & the
undertaker’s serious face;
I dreamed—a laughing girl danced
on the beach,
throwing bread to the ducks—
Ack! squawk of bestial seagulls above!
shrieking for crumbs, hardly
doves.
The Flood
a canoeist who challenged this current
fell in & was swept away—
ancient Indian Mounds themselves now islands—
a whole woods underwater:
little crests rise against the big trees & part,
the water swirling around & rippling below,
branches & sticks & ice chunks jammed up
against fallen trees or between 2 or 3 trees standing,
& out in the main current
giant ice floes, flotsam of old docks & broken
boats,
uprooted bushes & tree trunks
race in the wild water, jostling,
crashing against bridge pylons,
swirling away around the bend.
cars stop along the old park road,
drivers pausing to watch, eyes wide, hands at
lips.
Mottled Wings
stretched
to catch
the headwinds, a huge hawk
soars,
turns, adjusts,
to quick new
gusts,
plummets
downward then
catches another cross current to
keep his place, his eyes ever
below
where the canoeists,
lost in a dream of ancient
cedars,
roots & lichens,
the timeless river,
look up, pointing thru the
morning sun
to see the acrobatic
struggle above,
small prey along the
banks
hidden from deadly
view.
Gone West
silence above saguaro & cholla—
I stood under the arched vault of
the
ancient cave
& dreamed
where Salado Indians perched
& sang—
bringing their corn up from the
valley
singing,
singing by fires that blackened
this vault
forever,
burying their baby among the
house walls,
singing,
sighing, singing in deep night
as the fires flickered lights
across the
ceiling,
singing, standing at the cave
mouth
under the million
stars—
vast landscape before my eyes
now!
starshowers! sunrises!
cacti & palo
verde over runneled
mountains!
& in the silence,
a low wind, moaning
despite the boiling
clashing currents—
whole cliffs washed
away
grain by grain
& winds baffling
the bow—move quick!
the flow’s steady,
the destination
plain.
Audubon in
Fog: The Descent
thick fog on the peak above—
gnarled whiteblack
granite.
here,
endless fields:
yellow
yellow
delicate
buttercups:
underground streams
rush thru
rock beneath.
above
only the cairns’re now visible.
in the white
veil—
my
companions
somewhere above
scramble
down
as I sit here
follow
the
sit
until
your heart
beat
slows:
if
you
pick
your
way
care-
fully thru this fog
you may
stay
on the path.
still
the stones
may
shift under
your feet,
clatter down unseen canyons
where
you too
could fall—
catch your breath.
The River
the heron bends; the silver fish leaps.
in seconds, the water is still
again.
the woman in the funeral home
does not speak
her grief: her eyes are wet. never alone,
we are always so. our two hands touch;
two rivers flow almost into each
other.
full moon rising thru thin clouds
at sundown stops us—in spite of
being
a common sight. white phlox, lilies,
coneflowers are still. processions
come & go thru church doors—
baptisms, weddings, funerals pass
year by year. tack when the wind blows
that way; say it & share it—tho
nothing may be said or shared.
in the blue evening, clouds of
insects
churn above the still water. sitting
here, full moon floats below
& above.
A Charm
let worlds wake & petaled
dreams
unfold as
they may,
infinite globes wheel
regardless—
ant, spider, lion,
man & woman
turn in
sleep
& stammering,
sigh & wake as
the sun winks out
passing eons;
each
passing
moment’s jeweled
lights blast
thru dawn’s aspens,
reddening
maples, oaks,
as ravens bend to
scattering winds
& mock their yawp
over roofs of
this
world, where
bones make data of
fleeting dreams.
Sierra Madre
& North to
imagine, she said,
the mountains beyond—
white smog’s too thick
for us to see—
appearing at last, great
wrinkled heat-browned hills
stir us; where now
does the path begin?
—endless silver streams
of flashing cars
pass below, harried
commuter frenzy—
you unborn generations
curled in liquid dream
I hear your diapered squalls
& aging sighs even now
here where my feet
walk & yours will walk—
what
cooler sunrise will
greet you, what dewbeaded
roses
& windflashing wheatfields,
what delicate blossoms hang
above mossbanks & rocky
beds
of fishleaping streams? what
canopy cresting firs & pines
new grown where now
stumpfields echo hissing winds
& pyres glow?
Catching
Nothing
thru the tentflap, with
Anne,
half-asleep, distant
rumbling
thunder
coming on fast—
last night
I wandered in circles staring up—
stars thru dark
branches,
owls calling
valley to valley—
I dreamed of you, waking after
102 years of dreaming
enclosed
in flesh,
gone the dark way
now—
visions of puritanical
ancestors passed,
Wiltshire
to
the dinosaur bone collector,
efficient & ambitious,
whose skull is now
some
professor’s
paperweight—
& my grandpa, wandering
purposefully
thru his fruit trees—
the thunder’s closer now, now
torrents of watch crash thru
dark branches;
the rain’s steady, flood heavy—
rivers spring up in pathways to
camp—
thunder
hammers
the earth, which
trembles, shakes beneath us!
lightning arcs
thru camp past the
tent, again!
we speak in high voices to be
heard—
what branches above us might shatter,
crashing thru our skulls to earth?
we
lean to the open flap to know
the
splendor of the torrent.
in
dreams my father
sails out of a starry night
past rocks
& wrecks where
bones are washed & sink in sand—
along
last route to
died
bringing words
to confuse natives who knew
well
enough the spirits
that speak for earth & water.
my father ages at the wheel—
hands grow gnarled, winds cut
great lines
in his face, yet
his eyes flash as he closes
on the dawn,
his genoa
full of wind as he
plunges thru heavy
seas—
later, becalmed, he sings
an incantation for
the
beckoning dead
that he might move calmly toward their rest.
the
morning after
is
calm, cloudy—
fishermen wade in the swollen river,
casting
& casting &
catching
nothing.
the
silent heron is still.
deer
move out across the open plain toward
the lake, where they lower their heads
&
lap the still water,
ears alert
in this intense silence—
even
our hearts beat like
hammers now, sending out waves of sound
over
& over—
the breath
is a wind that
stirs up all the world.
ragged black clouds scud & break below
haze & farflung net of
stars thru which
the Northern Lights encode a dance:
a distant freighter slices waves,
making for the beacon’s turning flash
thru a graveyard where dead sailors sigh.
before the wavecut moonlit
lines
aging lovers turn on stairs, hold hands
& dream as these endless waves crash
where naked shamen pled
& prayed
as sailors shrieked among blackened waves.
come far for sleeping vision, waking dream—
lights fade & flare in a cloud-hung stream.
push
off
into silence,
steady
snow falling,
floating about us.
high
banks above, white swirl in
firs’ rising ranks, gnarled
cedars, aspen thickets,
the high deciduous
crown
in its cloud of white.
our paddles hiss & plunge,
hiss & plunge,
thru gaps
in the
now-blinding storm—
ahead, wreathed in mist rising
over
roiling current, thru
drifting snow,
you turn
to a hairpin bend &
disappear in a soft blizzard
beyond:
upright, stroking
slowly, evenly,
calm
beyond command.
in the dark at last, we lie flat
high on the plateau, now clear
night: crescent
moon, ancient tales
spun in stars,
Mars glaring on the horizon,
still pools
reflecting clouds & lights back
into the sky as our breath rises
& disappears. & still later,
waking in deep
night’s wild dream,
I look up to northern lights
flashing,
flashing
ancient signals, flaring thru
vast sky:
you & I
small & tender in our moments
together
as in moments others will share,
in time to come,
relieved & awakened
as we
were.
Two Hearted
River
eyes like ravens over road kill
fingers flashing in
reeling zebcos
the
fishermen can’t grasp
that some come for
the water itself,
tannin-red
near shore but so clearly a black
mirror
where no face appears—
or for lichen-rotted
balsam firs
lying like corpses across the
flow stacked
with flotsam &
foam, feathers
& bones, the fallen gathered
to spin in currents
siphoned
& spat down where the portagers put in
with a quiet rush
as cranes hang almost still in
the turning
sky above—yet
even
the heart
cannot fathom what
stillness
rests in this plunge, why men
sing together like
choirboys &
stop the gunnel
rush &
lay the paddles down
in the
whipping
breeze where scarred pines bend
thru storm & sigh
& rainbow’s end—
nor is it clear what
draws one to
the mouth even as the last ice
flows frozen
in winter’s roaring
surge break free
in great chunks, leaving
the churned sand of
November’s waves
again among agates below—
even the dramas of
rescue at sea,
the poignancy of a captain’s last
transmission, retold around
a kitchen stove in
by old
salts now retired
to muse thru waning years
with stormy Mondays & the
names of the dead
cannot pierce thru
this water
to the
lost bottom
or read the runes in the lights
of the waves.
January Moon
how many clear
icy nights like this
full moon
falling water muffled
in snowdrifts
rabbits limping among spruce
trees
shadows before us
mockeries of ourselves
we stumbled on the path &
sang—
now
alone, my hair white
I sing to keep warm
filling my arms with dead
branches,
recalling
the old song of delusions:
wandering in the
swamp without
knowing a way out.
across
the long valleys, an owl screams,
the stick
breaks—
my gloved hands steam in the
rising flame—
the hidden meadow
the long breathless climb
thru meadows asplash in
yellows
blues & flaming reds
around granite
boulders
shattered upthrust
shanks
thru aspen fir &
ponderosa pine
as shafts
of sun flash across
a spring trickling
down among
grasses swaying in early breeze—
the city below now
awake, faraway
roar,
metallic shine of grinding
traffic bullethead race to deadend
routines in offices banks &
restaurant
chatter—but here the
lovers
wake
& stretch together
& wander from
tent to sun
rubbing eyes scratching butts
as I pass unseen,
upward
to the
hidden meadow’s
twisted pine aslant
the “saddle”
where in solitude’s miles of
jagged peaks cliffs
empty trails
the sun
rises still & silence
rings in these ears
at last:
in this furious flowering,
three ravens land
& strut
& eye
me now, immaculate
company in calm ache
of mind & heart, the raging
planet
wheeling where even
love roars
in the
void & every step’s
a ghost dance thru
flames
to find the stream & float
away.
O moon above the
white peaks
now! the clouds flash away,
the land below lies
in its
white silence where
lovers turn to each
other,
the
meadow now a dream.
April
battered
in the frozen storm,
ragged
seedless
tufts atop
browned stems of
last
year’s
pampas grass
scrape
& whistle
in bright
sun: April 1.
the
rivulet
becomes a flood,
then subsides.
those not
swept
away
sink roots
further
into muck
& grow.
what stirs
at the base of these
singing
stalks?
who can
swallow the sun,
speak in flames,
turn the
world
green? that
voice raises
continents,
shatters
mountains,
changes tides
with a
word—
yet almost
silently,
a single drop beads
&
balances on
one unfurling
leaf now
open
in the hidden meadow.
My Bike
leaned against
the bridge
as
the
early sun bursts
thru
hills beyond,
burns off mists
retreating
upriver—
how much must one
shog off
to come at last to the moment
beyond the thinking sigh,
to
mists
retreating upriver?
ashore, the lovers're
locked
together asleep
in their car's backseat,
gnarled
fishermen
ogling them as they trundle
down to the shore,
arranging
bait boxes & gear,
lunches & coffee before
casting,
casting
into the swirling currents—
ancient groves teem
with
dragonflies, butterflies,
bees gone wild
in
the acres of petals—
& swiftly coast
down
past ruined trestles,
swampshack foundations near
rails
where rolling stock
once huffed thru this woods,
showering
sparks & smoke
beyond the mounds
where 1000 years of dreams
cradle
in skulls, lie
among turning roots—
swiftly
I pass
through beds of wild indigo,
white
pastiche of anemones
coneflower &
goldenrod,
thru a maze of thoughts back
downstream to the shining river,
the
silent beach,
a day so clear I'd swear
it'll last forever—
my
bike leaning now
against an
overgrown
root,
white oak whose
branch now
leans just above
the
currents:
& dream
I'll never go home again,
never
come back—
horns!
or
geese—
honking in
the distance.
far
upstream,
the
lovers now wake
together
&
rub their eyes &
stretch & sigh,
the rodman pulls in his dream's
great
fish, struggling
with his own
excitement,
& here
a
single bee works
the late
summer anemones
in the quickening breeze.
Owashtanong Sunrise
light breaks in the racing waves,
hissing currents roaring around
pylons, across
shoals—
hidden rocks
send up plumes & roostertails
& swirling flowereyes
of spray—
(here a thought of you who'll stand where I
now
stand, & you who
waded along
this stream & sang for fish,
pronged stick pointed for striking,
& you, who
watched aghast as logjams
upstream cascaded in debacle, crashing
thru bridge after
bridge—lumber barons
uptown splitting
dividends grown from their
grasping hands)—
now one greybeard bends,
mutters & sighs
aloud in the stream,
limpsy jaw &
chicken-flesh neck
working the air with
syllables,
machine-like,
as he plies the currents,
casting again &
again, no luck—
no luck—
eyes turned up to you in brief greeting—
then a strike, & both you & his
chatter are forgotten—
his bandy arms now wholly turned
to his task, playing
the fish back &
forth thru currents—
wild rolling silver
streak
flashing in the green spray—
the old man's legs braced against a rock
cutting the stream,
the fish now cresting
the waves,
leaping & plunging beneath again,
then gone . . .
he pulls the slack line in,
opens his bait bag
fishing around for a big one, turning the
hook to take
a wildly wriggling worm—
& casts again & again,
flowers of spray & lights
like eyes
still flashing about
him.
Lear by lanternlight
white moon now
thru the tent where
Poor Tom brings
his old father up to th' extreme verge—
my companions asleep
far across the clearing, their
logsawing
complement to roaring
winds
above the highest firs—
this a.m., their kayaks were
taken in raging cross-currents, yet one
dipped & feathered merely
with a paddle tip,
& found the center—
to float where the heart
slows, the ear tuned to
the humming of that
silence
none
hears in the smug city
where blindness comes not from
cruelty, but the stealth of routine—
even such an eye-
less man may need to
see
his
life's a miracle, O moon
thru my tentflap
now—
Reading the Signs
far from the main track
we
push on
thru old loggers' trails
crossing & turning upon themselves,
across the stream
below the roar of the
distant falls,
into the dark,
leaping from boulder to
boulder, over
the
shoals onto
the morraine's high bank, clutching
roots & gasping, crawling
upward,
no sign
of the watchers
tho
their eyes were on us—
thru the abandoned
ruins,
crumbling brickwork
still standing—
deep in the valley, harvest moon
over the last hill
behind us,
crickets
crickets trapped in
the last desperate
song of their lives, & still
no sign
of the promised
path—crashing
thru twilight, heavy brush, to
look up
at last & see
the stars
beyond the moonlit hill,
& now the faint trace
of a trail, where we
see, at last,
into each other's eyes.
Out thru the
eye beyond the stars
upriver in full moonlight, past the forested bank
where the old hunters' lodge once rotted away, even
the bars on the windows fallen in, beyond
the flatland where I once camped, a boy, & dreamed
of Anishnabes &
voyageurs in the deep night—
dreaming back to that night when, drunk, we plowed
upriver on a pontoon in deep fog, Charlie falling
overboard again & again & having to be fished
out,
Todd & I like lookouts for stumps in the swirling
current. now we
approach the darkened banks & turn,
& I think of you, far away in the firelands, grieving
with your mother as her lifemate
begins his journey
beyond this void:
I'd cup my hands & catch this moon
& send it to you the way sages once drank this
light in
& sang their lovelong
death songs as journeys out
thru the eye beyond the stars, opening in tears.
Gone (as you are)
when the currents push you
straight into that
hairpin turn where
slammed
sideways around
the bend two fallen
mammoth tree trunks, stripped
&
bleached, lie along each bank,
branches forcing rushing water into
a narrow
channel—brake
& cut thru
surging waves, avoid the crash
that'd
toss you into the roar the
frigid waters, your craft swamped
or adrift in
wild plunging
currents—
somehow you're through,
the river
widens out,
calm, & you can
sit back as morning sun fills
forest & swamp.
ahead, deer wake to your imagin'd
silence,
leap for their lives
through cedar budding
kinnickinnic giant firs,
breezes raising whitecaps racing
toward you, & you
await the moment when
the wave line hits & you lift
your eyes
to the new sky where
all the sleepers are finally
pushing seaward skyward
in a mad rush
where the cranes lift themselves
& are gone,
as you are.
Canyon Rim
to Hopi Point by Moonlight
the fabled domes & vermilion spires, towers,
ledges, pinnacles
shine faintly in the distance, pale blue,
ghostly by moonlight,
frigid wind slashing up the canyon—one picks
one's way
thru scrub pine twisted into spiraled grey
struggling out of
the unyielding mesa thru centuries of
weather, passing bands
of hunters, warriors, tourists—here where
where Anasazi &
Havasupai measured their days in tales spun
in fire, I grope thru the dark to sit alone, silent
under the fading
blue horizon, you lost to me as a bright dream once
floating
in a still sky—yet it is good to lie flat to fierce
gusts,
on a stone ledge jutting into this deep emptiness,
awaiting
the first sun shafts white light flashing up thru the
canyon,
& then to turn like a bright angel & make my
way down
onto pack trails, switchbacks where as the sun mounts
higher
ravens circle above, their flapping wings like sails
slapping
in the breeze:
thus one may greet a new day, beyond despair.
The Broken
Note
I tender my heart to you, my love, even in this broken
note.
in the shallows the first spring lilypads break the surface,
arrowheads rise thru muck where coonprints trace the shore.
downstream, we float among submerged rocks
broken
trees in swift current, where dead faces gaze
up thru gloom,
thru the flashing mirror—& we too wind
thru time's illusion:
networks' wired hum primes us for the coming
war, great
minds bend to the cunning task of fire &
blood, slogans & flags—
floating thus, may one sing a broken note to
greet this dawn
where herons turn from the jetliners' blast
path & the roar
of the shaking train stuffed with its cargo
of dead dreams?
(ever a broken note, yet my heart is full of
love, my love
is full of heart, full is my love, my heart is full, tho broken)
thus the kayak glides ashore where even phantoms laud
their loves, as I my love tender this message for
you.
After the flood
upstream, whole neighborhoods're still awash—
river
people sort thru the minutiae of lives,
tossing
out furniture, photos, pillows,
the
bed found piled
against a neighbor's oak.
others
paddle silently to a buick newly emerged
from
the waters—effluvia gushing from
the opened doors, stinking seats
tossed
aside where
carcasses rot among debris.
families
smile grimly for newsmen's cameras,
compare
it to past floods, resolve to go on,
&
turn their backs to hoe out
an
entryway, wiping tears
they cannot share with strangers.
downstream,
where dams slowed the raging water
to
a torrent, trees ripped from banks lie
half-submerged
in still-strong
currents. docks torn from their moorings
have shattered among tree trunks—
an
aluminum rowboat's twisted around broken timber
piled
where the current careens & curves, hangs
up
among foam & swirling water.
beyond
the high hills early flights roar
& kill all silence, jet thru sky-streaked dawn.
Ghazal of the
Shadow
thru the swamp mottled green
& yellow shadeshine cool September morning you
turn
as does leap high thru brush
into scrub woods low hills beyond muck pools & eddies
the river racing fast after
rains all sign of drought gone in the flashing water. the crisp air
belies stalled traffic in
Texas Rita boiling the Gulf into a rage of wind & rain lake waters
already flooding thru patched
levees newly freed streets & homes suddenly aflood
again.
she had journeyed south only
weeks before to bury her mom, dead awaiting heart surgery
in a small town hospital as
Katrina roared ashore. streets she’d
walked in charged memories
of childhood now were tunnels
of wreckage downed lines piled garbage dead animals
yet strangely they found the
lost deacon who could OK the burial, the greens for the casket,
the pot of red beans &
rice for the wake & even gas to get there & back through test after
test of patience. the journey thru such sorrow melds to songs
in moonlight where your
shadow follows you as in day,
where you become the shade walking beside yourself looking
back thru you & the
shadow world becomes a world of light where memory’s lovers turn
& pass thru your very
bones & eyes in the white silence of the moon & the warm hands
clasped together in a
wilderness of thoughts. here too the
stars turn in their heavenly courses
unseen by the attentive eye,
though the earth is solid & the breathing calm. when the ashes
that once were man swirl in
the turning current & the lovers stand on the shore sighing
at the life they’ve left, his
grey eyes wild heart strong back & dancing song, finally then,
the dawn comes & you find
your way back thru that turning morning to the leaping does
& the solitary heron arrowing upriver like a blue streak over endless shining
waves.