Sleeping with the Garden God

Into tendril I eclipse and more

Lit to fond with color blue adorn

The sky a dye of time and also magic

Beaming with bees I lay down with romantic



Close my eyes now into slivered moon

I’ll untie each celestial ribbon soon

While night and shadows hold me in my sleep

Knowing we are only in a prison when we keep

Our feet from feeling earth as opening gate

Into the pulse of mighty music’s till

A song from bless of meadow’s lift and still



The stroke of air is changed within this place

And breathing is the beat within the sound

Where peace distributes moisture to the glade

And I pressed to the garden god am made



With the love made sweet in time ecstatic

I'll cover each bulb to cool in time elastic

They'll open green and graceful

Colors blooming from the dirt

The wonder of this pleasure is

This birthing does not hurt

Autumn in my Arms

I can feel it coming now
Like a distant prairie wind
Across the nape of afternoon
In the drowning of a hymn

Played like the chainsaw
On a ribbon in a tree
Touching to the tender
Unarmed heart of me

And I know that there is lightning
And I feel the press of air
I can smell the bliss turned angry
And the opening act of flair

Sing it to me baby
Past the sky I feel the need
For my restless legs are dancing
In my arms your storm can feed

Music from the Corner of Autumn (with thoughts of Leonard Cohen)

The wind wakes me with moaning
Down the darkness of the driveway
I can hear it take the trash can
And make it into cymbals

I can smell the smoke of morning
From the sleepy waking houses
And I hear the bushes talking
To the naked trees while dancing

And I want to walk away then
Into the breast of darkness
And wrap myself in whispers
From the leaves upon the sidewalk

I have wondered at the mystery
Of the quiet breath of dreaming
Where it takes me past my pillow
Into slanted mystic meaning

And I toss my rumpled feelings
Back and forth I hear them shatter
They are building up a mountain
That I’ll have to climb by morning

And I feel the lies I’ve spoken
And I know the signs are broken
Yet I move within my memory
Like a sleepy child awakened

And I want to travel slower
And I want to go then faster
So I can’t find all my meaning
It is so far until the daylight

Then I see the creep of fingers
Weaving light across the carpet
And it’s the music that I know
Will take me home

Rubbing Raw

I think that I fell on the slip side of real
holding the root of something I feel
with the dirt clawing me with decision or drowning
for all that I know I’m not sure who is foundling

Blisters and blemish are up in the sky
and the sound of mad cannons make a pulse that could die
they are groaning and grating in cosmic repair
lifting my voice with the groan of despair

Now the dear shade of darkness is fumbled and warm
to the soft of my pillow I now comfort forlorn
and grow from the meadow within my own keep
where the fall has let down
giving warm wood my weep

To the places that time has made smooth as a rock
I take hold and rub raw with my fingers the clock
for the sounds that I hear have turned grumble to night
and the sweet breathing bubble still holds to its flight

eggplant

Green is green and red is red
let purple fill my arms instead

A Grandmother's Lullaby to the Moon

I feel a connection hold me
to the almost full of moon
following the place I am
lit now behind the tree
and again within the pool

I move too
rocking on a swing
that is tattered by time
yet it holds its movement still
and if I close my eyes
I can feel dirt and sky
and the dusk of evening birds fly

I sing the song of a grandmother
I sing it again I sing it well
to you and you the children
of the teacher and the mother
to the child within me still

Rocky rocky rocky rocky
backwards and forward
to and fro

Gathering briquettes
absorbing the good smell of wood chips
making love
out of an old BBQ and moonlight

I can close my eyes
my grandmother eyes
and hear the song
with the dear swing
that is part of everyone

and the swing just sings along

The Susurration of a Grandmother

Still there is the innocent sky
cloaked and holding in a wheeze
desperate
turning over leaf
licking
until its cement shadow is undone

and for a minute though yet to come
the tongue of Autumn fills my mouth
and releases a love song
within the perfect chamber
damp a slip of almost cool breath

Time opens past the fracture of the screen

Picking up the sound
my own
in earnest taking me up past blue
innocent sky
to hum a thin and delicate true

lullaby

For my grandmother Blanche

Oil and light
down a hill covered with yellow flowers and green grasses

With words you rolled with folly itch skin
and little girl whim
but I was a little girl then
and you were a story

The house sits a splendid thinking giant
looking over the ocean
the red roof nesting in the trees you climbed
your eyes windows

Was this where you first noticed color and texture
I wonder

Then later you smelled the turpentine
and caught it like a virus in your lungs

You could taste it even in your little boat
where you wished the wind would take you
back to your brush

It was part of your hand then

You talked to birds
you see
with a whistle surprised that it should come
from a flowered dress
and a neglected waistline

You were my lemonade
--------------------------


She was silk lined and curled
salt and pepper the trick
Blanche talked to birds
had magic lemon trees
and a pinch of sugar the stir

My legs were too long she said
for the rocking chair
creak the memory resides
still living just over there
waiting for another child

Summer brought the flowers up
in the pond all sober and bright
their lavender like a song
cool across the nether place
of orange popping fish

La la la she was that too
warm in places where I yearned
a comforter I hoped could cover me safe
from someone bent to steal grace
but no she was not looking for the truth
that in his goodnight was my bad dream
and she will sleep forever
not knowing all the words
to the song I sang
---------

The lines etched
across her face
are like a braded rug
made from pieces
of yesterday.
Her fingers tremble now
as she cradles baby time,
the rocking rhythm
inborn
gentles sorrow,
she forgets
the unessential sequence
of events
and calls me
by my mother's name
and my child
by mine,
then herself a child again
waits to be unborn.
-----------------------------

On searching antique stores for Grandmother
I went to find the paint of her
stacked on a back shelf
of some antique of neglected dust
with just the scratched black initials
that were her youth

A canvas of dark stilled to life
like old tomatoes slightly wrinkled
you can almost squash with your eyes
and the musty smell of old closets
where gay colors dream of light

She whistled the walnut tree of birds
until they fell shells of questionable merit
to pry with magic tool on shaded table
a pile of forgotten cribs
the goodness shucked

Could her tune whistle across time
her silk bent around fabric still in mind
she would not remember that she forgot me
in her pale comparison when we were all her child
the young and old of us built on layers
of curly hair and round skirts
legs bitter rooted to hardwood and phonographs
that still crank a tune
and the line of us all waiting
to take our turn

Her cataracts are the attic of my description
bound with words that are made from watercolor
and each delicate wound seeps the orange rouge
of wilted cheeks blurred by time to my girlhood
---------------------------

Holding Hands

The air was fresh and sunlit as it swirled around the Douglas fir. It whipped the towels draped on the railing of the wooden deck. From where I stood looking at the lake, it caught me and undid my hair. I had heard the quarreling voices, each tinged with placing blame on the other’s stooped shoulders.

Time had drained the strength needed to keep the cabin of summer with the lovely little outhouse on the hill. There is no blame to the edge that time softens. He had built it all. On his hands I could see the plan, callused and gnarled. She had softened it with her aproned arms. Many nights they lay beyond the screen, looking at the last ember’s glow of fire, listening to the frog voices echo down the mountain into the cove. Were they holding hands then, in the dark with their youth still visible?

The wind carried his words to me. I’m sorry, turned me to look back as she touched his cheek and smiled. I could see that they were holding hands.

The Fingers of the Moon

The silver slanted fingers of the moon

drizzle light across the plains of cities,

play in the parks and streets

and hide behind tall trees

that wear their skirts high

and drip berries in the spring.

They see the pattern of life is not flat

as they ride on hills and valleys

to dig into meaning,

then wander off

to make magic with night.

Like a child beguiled by sign keep out,

they hide on the other side of the fence

waiting for time to make a place to slide through.

The silver slanted fingers dance

with patterns weaving light and shadow,

pulling berries from the trees

that know the dripping sweet and sticky lick of dark;

waiting for a place to slide through and see,

following the pull toward the other side.

Gather....A Rictameter

Gather

the dark around

night is spilling the stars

as energy keeps growing strong

carrying hope and seeking meaningful patterns

from other searching hearts who know

how love explains,

when words cannot

gather

Dappled...A Rictameter

Dappled
Shadow's color
Slow movement of the trees
The filtering is touching me
With eye's curiously unblinking time
Lighting earth with the shifting wind
Welcome serenity
Always in flux
Dappled

A Canary Watching the Passing of the Sun

In the room the table's heavy legs are folded and tucked. The canary sings in its center. He tells the sun the time, singing to the yellow sash of the eastern curtain. He touches the apple tree drenched with fruit with his ripe song, that's for certain.

"I have no lover but warble true," says Bird, as tree fronds nod wind's rhythm in the dark side of the pond.

"I hold the evening still within," the Pond replies. "The tree's reflection is my eye. The frogs din and the fish cease swim in my shadow water’s song. Come along with me if you dare and see your own reflection cast in prisms care. This beauty is love’s perfection."

Just as morning ends and hits cement with hot, the trees dance away the sky, leaving you and I in dappled light, easing over the roof to night. The fire takes the air in front and sparks it into the crystals slant. Across the room as if in dance, canary sings to lights, like fairies laced with his sweetest vocabulary; forgetting for now the pond out back for in the pond he sees his lack.

Sun dares to dip behind the traces of palm soldiers tall with headdress faces. The clouds now all sweep into place as if a child’s crayon traced the colors of the human spectrum until they mix in genuflection.

In memory of the sunny place this sweet bird had in my life. 8-22-03

Spirit Cloud

"What is rain, mother?"
asked the sparrow’s child,
long after the time of the last flood.

"I will show you," said earth.
"Gather a spirit cloud
and place it within my water jar.
Be careful not to spill for the well is dry.

Let it fill with thoughts of thirst
until it is puffed with importance;
let it fly like balloons
in every color to amuse the sky.

As it touches the top of brittle tree,
it will pierce it with an arrow of fire.
When the dry lake and river run gold,
you will know the meaning
of rain."