Inductive Current

Not quite awake
But you take a
Moment to touch
My Brow and
I believe that is
How much 
Of what
I see now of
Night slip as 
Light from
Your fingertips.

That Is Good

                      [Normavid raindrops on reflective puddle]

 

Reflection under
Raindrops includes
Sky and tree tops
Over rippling light.
There might be new
Wildflowers seeding --
Or weeds needing mud
Here in these woods
As well as trees, and
After dry years, that
Is good, very good.

Clouds Heading

Clouds heading east over
A eucalyptus tree on what
Was once an inland sea,
Now my valley, assume
Formation off frothing
Crests of wind-whipped
Waves, west and overhead.
The rest of their motion
Obeys the high timeless
Tide of a revenant ocean.

Time Curves Forward

Sowbug, a detrivore,
Found in fallen wood.
When touched in curiosity 
Curls up into a pill --
A skill of survival for
Sowbugs everywhere--
Protecting a future
In hope to live there.

Norma's Garden

Her garden in
Fall light invites
A visit --I read this:
"Good day." Is it?
I must say, it is.

E equals

Over treetops,
In the sky, we
See ourselves
Tonight.
By computation
In moonlit leaves
We are the
Square root
Of light.

Five Years Into Retirement

[Normaphoto of backyard]

Gray fences, pushed
About by bushes, abandon
Euclid at burled trunks.
Trees outline eccentricities.
Mind divided from a park
By palings sees each
Limb beckon in wind.
Gardens call, and by
Reckoning of
Fall leaves, light, rain
And shadow, go where no
Fences are at all.

Golden Gate

Saturday, dressed as its own dream,
Golden Gate Bridge began
With a veil over its span,
Recalled designs formed
In Joseph Strauss's mind and,
As the day warmed, seemed
To assemble as it did for him--
A poet and engineer who undimmed
A dream and made it appear.

Happy Autumn!

This morning, she gathered 
Garden oddments and plugged
A glue-gun in outside, resulting
In a gift for her mother.
She calls it "Fancy Pumpkin".
I call it "Autumn Assemblage".
I don't know, sometimes it's
Almost like we're two different people.

Observer

I have found a daylit
Moon over an olive 
Tree, or did it find me?
Former means peace,
As does the latter, so
I guess it doesn't matter.

At This Latitude

Earth and I turn
East 800 miles per hour.
The least wave breaks
In crests of
Wildflowers, mountains,
Years, now, yesterday.
Tomorrow we feel
Churning stars
Refill the furrow
Of our keel.

Up

This summer,
Morning glory
Got up a privet
To give it 
Color where only
Green was.
I don't always approve
Of what the garden
Does, but I like this.

Night School

One may dream

A player
Paved for Hamlet's
Ghost, declaim
Over old silence
Or marmoreal balloon
Drummed in heartbeats
Escaping skyward,
But I woke because the
Moon made too
Much noise.

Gerridae

A magnetic field
Across gravity, time
Revealed in embryo--
Had eyes, saw,
Worked its raw way
Into light, direction--
Water-strider remains,
Lingers over its own
Reflection, attached, all
Fingers, to what is known.

Cosmos As A Verb

Looking upward, drawn
From earth, enthralled,
Driven, nourished in rain,
In cloudy light, this flower,
Cosmos, senses no
Separation from our star,
Soil, our sky --neither
I suppose should I.

You, Peace

Command myself not
To stare --rare people.
Rarities with quiet in them--
Unsudden surprise,
Like littoralis inland or
Dream remembered-- I like those.
Something seen when they look,
Eyelashes open a
Private whisper of the world.
When they look up, a weightless
Smile --a sunlit cloud
Caught thinking.
Is it ocean or wind
In trees one hears?
Such people, the
Difference disappears.

Summer

It isn't all
Daylit tantaras from an
Angel's trumpet.
The root is perfected
In darkness, and
At night earth extends
Claws clutching green.
What grows between
Is summer.

Answering Elephant's Child

Indeed, the world is,
Among myriad other things,
An equation from which we
Cannot subtract love
And still have fireflies.

Hummingbird Beside me

Hummingbird
Beside me,
You hover at a walnut
Twig and remind me
That our world is
Very very big.

Fleurs

On a bunny-gnawed old box
She lashed a lattice of wands.
A yellow word on a makeshift
Shelf will now define itself.

Inside Out Flowers And Friends

   American barrenwort (Vancouveria hexandra).

They don't forget, a
Shape remains in apian
Brains but time emits
A mist in it --old scents
Drift out, inside out--
From petals such as
These and some confusion
Overtakes bees at
Inverted pleats, then
Light or heat disperses
Doubt --it rises, burns
Off fog, years, hours.
Summer returns with  or
Without these strange flowers.
Bees adjust --I
Suppose I also must.

Among Trees

Here at last we have
Traveled, you and
I, from the past
To see this light in the
Sky, bright above
Black lace leaves.
Earth weaves such
Scenes as these
Among moonlit trees.

Continental Drift

Over rock, iris,
Periwinkle
I walk a bowerbird's
Pavilion.
Doesn't matter
Which point
I start from,
I always end up
In love.

Eight Lightminutes From Sol

Incandescent clouds and
Sunlight under rising iris
Compose a moment where
A moment already is.

Decoded Here

Monsters, gods,
Ancestors, encoded
In ribose and
Esters, surround
Olympus in labor
Love and fear,
Become us and
Are decoded here.

Coming In The Side Gate

Histories combine
Along a fenceline.
Paling, gate, rail, planter, shelf
Secure an anatomy of the
Future, a cosmos, time--
A nerve by which a
Garden knows itself.

71 Bus

She sees my beat-up book
Where I search again
For an answer
In an old bus that hauled
Gardener to gardens and
Back again and again
And still needs attention.
I like the look of silver.
"Silver?" she says,
"That's rotten duct tape."
Yes, I suppose it is.
"I like it too," she says
And takes a photo.

This Nook Naved In Alders Is

This nook naved in 
Alders is where time 
Caught --a covariant
Force in light, gravity,
Emotion, thought
And low fog-- makes
Frogs sing at night.

Early Spring

Poppies appear early this year.
Winter shifts its center and
Stems lift flowers  --a season
Warm among things young
Then old in mere hours--
Our star infusing forms with
Life, us too, young then old.
It is often very confusing.

Cogito Naranjado Sum

So we  think, 
Therefore are,
And must be here
To think, but first
Learn by asking
How: how is such
Thought defined 
As much by what is 
As what is not?
So all that is not me,
I must also be.

RAIN!

Light through a lens refracted
In bright echoes of phantom
Sun --wind-driven optics align.
This is how it's done: send dust,
Time, entirety pinwheeling in
Space; ignite thought, feeling and
Place them right under reeling storm.
They will observe then run inside
Where it is warm, home --where
I am writing this poem.

I Have Been Thinking Of Colors

In a midwinter web
Raphiolepis snags some
Morning gray and holds it
Where day may take it,
Measured out atom by atom
Into other seasons-- into
Beans, berries, sea-green pattypan--
Past and future gardens.
I do not know where
This web began.

Mailbox Bulbs

Bagatelle,
Encrypted
In living cells
Defines each
Unscripted
Judgement Day:
Not destiny,  more
Melody in time
And  chance; not
Hell, but
A bagatelle,
A dance.

Punctuation For A 45-Year Pause

An old oak, gnarled in
Mid-shrug, accepts
Our climb and joins
Me in memory--
Friends, a tree, a
Sunlit inch in time.

Runes

Pointy message writ
In runic toolrack appears
To recommend rakes
For Nordic debris.
This from prehistory
Involves raven knees,
Yggdrasil leaves, wind.
Blowing away what was
Is what wind does,
And I believe
This one means pitchfork.
I need a pitchfork?

January One

[Credit: ISS Expedition 7 Crew, EOL, NASA]

Perfected in light
And darkness as
When life first
Found it, dawn
And dusk encircled
Earth and midnight
Moved around it.