POETRY

Four Trees

Came down on that windy night
(I’m not sure which one), winds
pushed and pulled at those tall
cedars that stretched upwards from

the steep-sided gully. First a cedar
snapped and fell towards the north.
Its weighty solo shoved against its
leafless neighbor, a maple rooted

in the soft soil of a narrow creek’s
bed; it gave way. This duet of trees
leaned into another cedar until
it tilted, tugged on its roots until

they loosed their grasp on rain sodden
soil. All three forming a trio within
the grip of gravitational urgency
came to rest against a fourth and

more obdurate cedar which resisted
the urge to lie prone upon the earth.
So it did not fall. Instead it embraced
a massive Douglas Fir which was

more firmly rooted. For weeks this
quartet remained suspended until
the men with chain saws came. It
did not take them long in that din

of gasoline engines to bring them
all down to recline in death.

Angel’s Rest

On this stone peninsula
surrounded by wind
vision is clearest behind closed lid
when sunlight massages back,
neck and shoulders
releasing congested traffic,
erasing gridlock,
disentangeling collisions
held tight by nerves and muscles.

Air currents deliver invitations—
yellow biscuit root,
purple salal berries,
a grey jay’s silhouette—
collected from gnarled roots,
rocks, fissures and unseen wings
to entice the heart.

Pushin God

I know,  
I Know,
I keep on pushin God
right in your face. 
“Lighten up,” you say. 
“Go skateboard on I-5” 
you say. 

Hey, you think 
it’s fun pushin God. 
The retirement benefits 
can’t be beat, 
but the pay is somethin awful, 
an lately, pushers 
have been gettin a bad rap. 
Pushers are always 
sticken their faces in yours 
or mine, 
pushin cigarettes 
or whiskey 
or life insurance 
or some kinda pill 
that’l cure whatever you got 
that gives you pain. 

Okay, okay 
I won’t push no more. 
God don’t need my pushin no more. 
God’s already there, 
waitin for you to be just so tired 
of what’s makin you 
wretched and pitiful. 

After Burning

Wet now
with summer’s burning
long past

singed forests
scared and fragile
inhaling ashen breaths
expelling asthmatic
lamentations

where needles lie heavy
on pathways
now seldom travelled

blackened trunks, limbs
lace sky to earth
twine wind
to brittle silences
ensnaring melodies unsung
unheard

Enunciation 

Collect the words
gather them in as they 
swoop, swirl or drift. 
The ether is overfilled 
with pronunciation; 
syllables are free for the taking. 
rake up adjectives and verbs 
bind up adverbs and nouns. 
Eventually, when the air is asleep 
when silence and emptiness 
surrounds your ears, and 
you need to shout, 
then, if you have saved enough 
you can unfurl them endlessly, 
stitching sentences into banners, 
regalia, tapestries, quilts— 
give pattern and measure 
to what otherwise would remain a mute, 
unarticulated effluvium.  

Flowering Desert

Red and orange
undulations
divert attention
from the yellows
and browns that clothe
the rainless summer.

Red and orange
shimmers
line the roadside
with petals of devotion
while a heavy incense
obscures the thorn.

Red and orange
toilers
for the silent one,
hungering for peace,
build invisible walls
within each heart.

Muscle-bound

Michelangelo is to blame.
He may not have started the craze
for pulsing pectorals, or bulging biceps
bigger than a normal man’s leg,
but he pushed that seam-straining
envelope until every muscle flexed.
Superman, Batman and Spiderman
have nothing on Jonah or Daniel—
not to mention that Cumaean Sibyl—
and those other hefty Sistine hunks.
This God, and Adam too perhaps, after he was
energized by almost touching digits,
could juggle planets and heft the universe
without breaking into a sweat.

Tails

cars
bumper to bumper
in rush hour traffic

dogs
sniffing at the tails
wagging before them

And Feathers

Sidewalk jesters
cling to my eyes.
Stumbling voices
waltzing black clowns
starlings parading.
dressed for a funeral.

Proletarian eyes
Pull crumbs
from my fingers.
My lunch is devoured
within a crowd
of strutting white beaks.

Claws sprout conspiracies
among gutters.
The tired automobiles
crouched within streets
wear transparent windshields
beneath garbled tracts.

A scattered voice
plants seed
in diagonal patterns
among the empty
shalom rooted strategies
and feathers.

Reims Rendezvous

Where his glowing presence came from
I do not know.   An empty space
next to Mary that had been vacant, was
full now, of a persona—wings and robes
resplendent—a halo hovering above his head.
Later I would be told that he, this

beautifully handsome being, was Gabriel.
His subsiding wings fill my memory
with questions.  How did he appear
out of nothing?  How has the artist turned
his image into stone—stone that appears
to live, and speak, and overawe Mary,

at least initially, who seems overwhelmed
with surprise, and awed into silent
and everlasting stillness?  Did Gabriel
already know how the story he was helping
to unfold would play out within this world
lost and fallen beyond chance of human 

transformation or redemption?  Could Mary
not but think that this glowing angel was part
of some cosmic dream too surreal for a mortal
to grasp and hold onto—one so limited
by flesh and blood?  This message, the
expectation of it, the obligations and vast

consequences it encompassed—they were
ludicrous beyond belief.  Instead of crying out
or deftly swooning, she retains her composure
in the face of this onslaught by a radiant
representative of eternity.  She does not balk
or shrink within her inherent human frailty.

Instead, Mary offers the perfect response—
agreeing to play this proffered roll unsought.
She is innocent of the inevitable outcome, the
inexpressible and pain-filled agony that will
enshroud her humanness—invisible
for now within her future.  Unencumbered

with such foreknowledge she becomes
humility itself, head slightly bowed, but with
her feet firmly planted on the solidity of earth,
and remaining in this world bounded by
chronological time and space, and the cruel hand
of death waiting—always waiting expectantly.

Her new task so fastened to—entwined within—
an imponderable responsibility, that could
so compress her soul that she would remain
gracefully immobilized as is her image,
adjacent to this entrance, to this place of sanctuary
and release.  She is not so focused on

the immensity of what has been asked of her,
nor on that sly, slippery and slinking creature
who long ago set this world atilt within his lies.
She readies herself for the new life
that will soon form a nest, a temple within her.
Wrapped within her selfless devotion, and held by

the possibility of transformation it offered,
she remains in a world that has loosed its hold
on eternity, a world too long adrift—wafting
disconsolately within a polluted realm, a chaotic,
endless and barren expanse, shaped and eroded
by the centuries within our negligent misdirection.

This unnamed sculptor spoke truth; 
enunciating with his chisel in stone
he formed and crafted a revelation—
an unflinching testimony, an affirmation—
one our minds will never be able
to fully disentangle or parse unaided.