Face Of The Waters

Surface:
Cross-section of
All space; each event
Transmits its sphere
And, where patterns  
Interfere,  a new
Event emerges.
Each puddle 
Verges upon an
Infinite geometry 
Of raindrops in
Random endeavor 
And it doesn't
End, not ever.

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.