Back Door Lights

We are results,
Stellar atoms strayed
Escaping , cooled --
Accidental lives 
Scattered on Earth--
Surely worth draping
Light around doors for
And hoping over our 
Faults where odd stars
Gone wrong gather night
Into planets and people.
We play in little lights,
Ignite our notes in song.

 

(1915-2001)

                                                                   With love and admiration to all mothers

When her hearing went
She often said,"I can hear you
But I can't tell what you're saying."
At her kitchen table
We watched a storm pound
The olive orchard--
Sunlight fled the field
Crossed the creek and
Dark filled the window,

Then lit blinding blue

Over thunder to the bone.
When the room unrattled
She laughed, "I heard that.
I just couldn't tell what it said."
I wish again that her hearing
had been better because
I'd love to know.

Drought

Drought, it hides 
Out underfoot
In tortured roots,
Science, in art,
And doubt, faith
And overhead in
Dry trees where 
We seek the living
Sky from our knees.

Time Wave

Here, rain falls
Where form fills a
Pull of potential.
Rain falls on what
Will be because
Rain fell.
Life, shrunken nearly
To nothing, soaks, sprouts,
Stretches, ages.

Old bark ridges,
Cuts of other seasons--
Things in soil and reason
Endure between bricks,
Logs --snails, worms, sowbugs.
Treefrogs clutched
In a broken cup

Don't care what time
It is here and,
To a gardener, being
A year --or a million--
Arrears is about
Like caught up.

From An Even More Apocryphal Apocrypha

The great spirit of
Humankind descended
Upon the world and cried out,
"What the heck am
I doing in all these bodies
And why are they so
Excited about each other?"
All the stars swept
Down to shed light on
The question and
Got snagged in a
Potted olive tree.
"Beats us!" they chorused.
So it's up to you and me, I guess.

Della's Pump Again

It's been 3 years since I posted this poem on"Invalid's Workshop" and now it's 11 p.m. and I've just come back from working on Della's pump again. This time, I had to run a hose across the field from my well to her plumbing so she could shower and flush etc. --fell down climbing over a wire fence and hurt myself! I then gave her phone numbers to call in the morning. I no longer solve submersible pump problems in the dark. That was a recreation for a younger version of me. But I was reminded of what it means to be a rural neighbor in this world and decided to repost the poem before the country is entirely paved and ruled by Home Owners' Associations.

His old mother's well quit
Quite in the dark.
Condenser, relay,
Romex rusted under weeds.
Here we chose our places
And our deeds--
Useful under stars, black trees,
Probing earth for logic
On our knees.

Ourania And Graphic Arts

Ourania worked
Annular rings
From her lyre.
Sometimes she
Sings and can
Be heard in
Heartwood here.
She painted
Peace above
A battlefield.
Detail revealed it
Split stone and
Took away walls.
Nothing left
Except a telephone.
No one calls.

Coreopsideae, Cosmos

Cosmos is what
We understand
Of our universe and
--compose nomenclature
To converse in
Its language of 
Nature-- what we live
And do. "Give,
Give," it says.
"For that is all
There is of you."

Sub Rosa 2

We know water
And sunlit leaves,

Seeds, each other,
Under roses, trees

And earth's 
Enchantment to
Be, to be.

****************************************
Note: Poem, Sub Rosa 2 , was written an hour ago in response to 3 photos Norma took from an angle opposite the poem, Sub Rosa, (yes, blue and clickable) which was written and posted 5 years ago. Poetry is like that, rush rush rush. I sure hope I get more comments on this new one than I did on the first one.

Anemochory

We learn in defining fire.
Carbon remains grow
Brains in curriculum
Derived in lives sprung
From seas, plains,
Trees --speed to escape
Velocities --wind, engines,
Sails, rockets-- tusks and
Tails dropped to the ground.
After which, sudden 
Silence, an absent 
Sound of startled
Birds, replaces words. 

Anthem

Cyclic evolution, done
And begun again:
What will be --future
And history-- at a
World's edge, this
Prospect and ledge,
After work in mass
And energy must
Pass now down a
Cypress path to the sea,
Relearn its name and
Return the way it came.

Magnetotropism

Our way has taken us
Over sea and time.
Things that could not
Climb before storms
Broke on rocks.
We descend over
Beaten docks where
Ruin ends and 
This garden begins
Under a star.
You are near and
I love you,
Who you are, have been,
Will be --and you
Have seen these things in me.
Each moment rises forth.
Overhead, a wedge of
Geese is seeking north.

Geo.'s Solstice Poem

[First, 3 photos: "Night life at my house. All within about 1/2 hour," --Norma.]

Over our revolving lens,
Sun sends edges, silver,
Under down gray and,
At the close of day, yellow
Light turns to fire folded
And rolled in tangles.
Earth holds its pitched
Angle where gardens rise.
Refraction fills the sky.

 

Quartet

Lavender quartet on our
Kitchen counter--
Spikes and drying buds, 
Bracts sing of 
Old countries, oil, infusions
Of saffron, cinnamon,
In a Song of Solomon.
I believe they grew--
Like me, like you-- where
Flowers fell among nations,
Eras, epochs, along the ancient
Iron veins of Earth, on stone--
Over broken granite bones--
Birth, birth and rebirth,
Here, where this strain sings
With its world under 
Sunlight,  under rain.

This Garden

This garden
Belongs to no
Particular space
Or age --creation
Is not frozen in place.
Over clouds, the loud
Sun roars in its cage,
Announcing life,
Then silence. 
Then we go where
We have not been.

Nexus

On earth,
Brass bells
Hang from
Umbrella  branches.
Everything has its birth.
Rounding dawn
Dreams back its
Billion years.
Old red stars in our
Cosmic spine
Barely displace darkness
Now, persist in
Garden roses.
What disappears in
Light, shadow exposes--
From antiquity,
Remotest night,
In wind where
Little bells emit
A melody to
What is still
Suspended there.

Irreducible

Here raindrops on
Purple iris fall,
Lit in clouds climbing
Our valley wall,
Refract a world,
An endless hour 
From an idly 
Unfolding flower.

Temporal Covenant

All experience
Bound to one
Instant, an
Enchanted flash
Of fire and shape.
Is it motion or
Expanding stillness?
Silence grows.
What time
Is a rose?

Rainy Day Garden

She brought in blossoms
From our darkening garden,
Arranged a conference
Of color and scents --
A kitchen counter review
Of what our world ought
To do under storm.
There was no debate, only
Fragrance enacting law--
Nor reform-- only a planet
Each blossom saw wheeling
Under rain and sun, and
Always a quotient of one.

Yet

Forty-six years ago we
Wed on an equinox, yet always
I am a pilgrim in her garden.
I am tired from trimming
Trees along the fence, yet,
Next year, even older like
Today, hope to descend
This ladder and lay my
Chainsaw in its box--
I am an old ox with a
New pain in my shoulder.
Yet, and yet it seems 
Sometimes like she and
I have only just met.

The Gardener's Farewell To Winter

Spirits torn in tears
And laughter rejoin
As east wind amassed
Moves undiminished
On --much happens after 
What happened last, yet,
Spirit is still unfinished.
It is resourceful, sturdy.
Clouds inquire from the
Sea, so don't be remorseful.
It only confuses me. 

Odd Corner

Caladium comes up in
An odd nook, a corner
In sun and shade--
A decision made in
Tropism, inarguable.
A crowd of leaves,
Earlike, listen to a
Logic of soil and light.
This gardener never
Disturbs what is
So soundly right.

Hello Bead

Thanks for planting
Rosemary where she
Blooms so far ahead
Of season--good reason
For waking early.
We nearly had to
Pillage reserves back
At the hive, taking
Our future to stay
Alive, but now, now
There's something,
Something fine to frame
Our door into springtime.
                   --Your Friend Bead. 

After Rain

After rain, ideas sown
In drought assemble
And sprout  under light.
The past is perfected 
In darkness, in night.

Even our words,
So deeply rooted 
In the past, are
Refitted for the
Future --now.
Now is simply a
Suture, aligning
Language into 
More, ideas we've
Never had before.

Orbiting

On our bench--
She arranged a
Row: potted pansy,
Daffodil, grape hyacinth--
From soil, seed,
Bulb, and a
Planet's path
Under its flame.
To each, as
To ourselves,
We give a name.

Backseat Buddha

We'll set him
Beside the sundial
Where an ant on an
Analemma gnomon
Climbs a code
Across light,
Across seasons--
When color reclaims
This old gray road.
It too may
Overlay itself for
All I know.
Things come, go.
Things do.
New lives enter.
I like winter,
Don't you?