Category: poetry

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I hold the leg back
while my father
makes the first incision.

It is here,
September desert mountain,
dry creek bed,
cervidae refuge,
where woods thicken
humid and dark,
where sons father dreams,
birds dash from tree to tree
like anxious spirits
in silhouette.

It is here,
oblivious to
the swarming flies,
knees locked in silence,
I watch the knife blade
deftly moving in bloody hands;
entrails glistening,
antlers digging earth,
eyes once bewildered
now like glass.

It is here,
down this lethal ravine,
shimmering blood on leaves,
broken branch of frantic motion,
cloven prints in soft soil,
and shouts from the ridge above,
I lunged headlong
with rifle ready
tired limbs forgotten,
following instinct and fear.

It is here,
guts now spilling
green-yellow stench
from belly wound,
where I last heard
the painful breathing,
and motioning,
directed the final blow.

~1998

>1.
The hills in the distance
are eggplant and somber
heavy outlines separating
the sky and valley
like divisions of life
and their smooth testimony
harbors a silent ache
created by inches
and terrific pressures
in a time of inherited archetypes

And this young valley
is an ancient ocean
I live at the bottom
where the grass is greenest
and sometimes I am
below the grass, below the roots
deep, deep in the difficult clay
that is my life

In the mornings
I find my way
by the belt of Orion
and the cats
on neighborhood lawns
at times
when Winter makes the ridges bleak
I feel the Senate at my back
but I am no Fabius
and these fires are all my own

2.
There is a river
that runs like an eel
down the guts of the valley
but no matter that it keeps moving
the river never takes away
any sorrows

The water along the bank
is almost invisible
except for the sheerest gleam of sky
like fire leaping
above the dark browns and ocres
of the river’s edge

and even here
the infinite calls me
to empty visions
waiting to be filled
with new flesh and new bone
to hollow figures
waiting for a finer blood
and a purer light
a change so complete
one is carved through
and left for dead
along the quiet fire of the river

>1.
on that bedroom wall, a barn
in August; a Vermeer;
a café; and suitcases
painted by someone we know
and beyond that wall
the great wheel turns like a millstone

when the sky is blue
it is the gleaming face of destruction
and down among the roots
in the tangles of soil an ancient vine
threatens our hedges
tangling our hopes with darkness
calling to us from the tomb of this world

some set up stones
some spilled blood
some sacrificed flesh
and when night descended
the sun fought its way through hell

this is the ancient of days
the ever coming of the storm
the swelling of the tender buds

2.
in the beginning
we did not think of cities;
seeking arcadia along the rivers
and in the fertile valleys
collecting goats
corroborating stars
wearing anxieties like dead skins

and when our sons grew up
and killed each other
the heavens still beckoned
but our monuments never reached that far
not really
and all of it’s more like a parking lot
than an orchard
but still I see the leaves kicked up

3.
I am a trunk
hewn and mobile
bone and blood
a serpent and a spirit
I am viscera
I am pouring forth
I am crawling through
and you
the world
a treachery
a beautiful death
an angel and a sword
a streaming light
can only cast your voice
in the stillness of my desires
like blossoms falling
in the shadows

-2001/2007

Et in Arcadia Ego, painting by Guercino, ca. 1628

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>Do not turn away
Even though you have the chance
Do not take your leave
For there is really nothing to take
Only to lose or to gain

Do not break in two
Or fall apart or become as stone
Or let the fire destroy
Or let the fire go out

Do not go quietly
But you can go humbly
And know that humility
Is an ache deeper than the ocean
And a challenge like the challenge to love

Do not forget why you are here
Or where you are going
Especially where you are going
For that is the voice that calls to you
And shapes you
And makes you

And do not call out
Unless you want what you ask for
But do not keep quiet
Because even a shrug
Can speak of infinity

And never forget your first love
Or your heart’s desire
Or your deepest lament
Or your darkest night
Or the promise you were given
Of the life you were wanting
Because you had eyes to see
And you still do

>When this body has run its course
and mortal life takes it final bow
and the futile strivings against the ever flowing tide
recede into nothing,
what blessings can be said to remain?

Under the sky I find the prison door open
for the vagabond’s travels
but I have these flowers,
and this scrap of sunlight in the dust,
and in the frequent dark
I find embraces to remind my heart
to carry on; for with this imperfect love
I still know the infinite
distilled in time,
translated in sin,
held in hope,
and promising blessings.

And it is there and there and
there, in the terror and the joy,
that I hear the voice.
Fear not.

-October 2007

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down below the canopy
queuing like 405 traffic
silver backs undulate
bank to bank

others
buoyed by
desperate instincts
thrash and wheel
in heavy currents

picture book glory
ephemeral beauty
more eternal
with each frantic arc
and we breathed it deep

we came from above
through tall grasses
along the Russian’s
tumbling beauty

and now
standing in soft gravel
gripping poles
like sacred staffs
we enter in

-1998

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