how can the wind with arms all around me

I.

I’m annoyed at the same burdocks,

the same box elders greening, the same yellow rocket

all aglow suddenly now that it’s mid-May,

after months of gray.

How often can I marvel at the cottonwoods’ arch,

the same patch of spreading vetch and bobbing violets?

And then, close by my head,

a violent orange shying,

up into the breezy poplars,

with a syncopated

slurring whistle flies:

tree, deedle dee dee.

And I spy the Oriole returned.

And my heart, sandbag silted,

cries.

II.

Osborne once said a hundred pounds would take us to Australia.

I do not know what I need today.

What passage is a hundred pounds?

Osborne was a poet.  Sickly.

He died just off the road.

He lay down

watching the spring trees just budding sticky green and blowing so wildly,

eyes to the vaulted sky~~

and then a fly crossed his face and you knew he was dead.

A Poetic Death.  And I do not want to die.

I ring you up at 3 am in tears,

my emotions too big for my skin,

paralyzed.

My thoughts larger than the darkness:

I don’t want to die.

And you say, “You’re not going to die, go back to sleep.”

I rest my matted hair, my hot cheek,

into the shoulder of your voice.

 down

soften,

then, I.

I try watercolors

 What I saw on break at work

Daffodils in the Woods

 

 

 

 

 

PHALAENOPSIS

Warm rolling waves up over roots recumbent,

Comes all blanketing an ardent flooding.

Aloft in your sudden gracious tropics,

A newly epiphytic orchid am I.

White-hot, free-flowing showy,

A fluttering moth living on air,

Finally full.  Igniting dust motes

Reflective flashing in moonlight,

Bathing through cracked panes

And smeared through sashes.

Deep from the dreaming,

The time of horses half-remembered,

Cashmeres plush kissing

and Sandalwood burning,

Smudging mists singing . . .

The mahogany grooved spindles

Of the four poster surrounding

And girding the rise.

Swinging on the rope bridge

Inside, pale and tenuous,

Finally catching fast

On to you at last . . .

The other side.

August 2007

What I didn't tell you

 

did I say how the snow crunched beneath those rusty runners,

the baler twine frayed in wet mittens,

how the gravel stuck to sand, but not rainwater?

did you get the musty smell of the haymow,

the mud nests of the swallows,

how my tears were pillowed in the black grey ruff of my dog,

facing north,

blurred as the shifting streaked curtains of the aurora

A linky-thing

Blue Butcher Orchid
A lovely scribble in honor of my birthday by dear Amanda Joy.

Nymphaeum

Crepe de chine flowers

Shine, then lose luster.

In wishes and dreams

We ask always for the other

And come to the pool

Misted over,

A mirror.

Feed Your Pain

You are holding it so tightly,

Trying to bleed it knuckle-dry with your fists,

Bury it in blankets and sighs,

Ashamed of your dear little pain.

But perhaps your pain has fur and teeth

And wants feeding:

Fresh walnuts and white goat brie.

Perhaps your pain bites sharp

In red rounds of radishes

Or stings keenly like vodka

In breathtaking gulps,

And only sniffs the salad

You offer it.

Perhaps your pain rises in chunking clumps,

A funicular up the slopes,

Flushed full of Bull’s Blood

And bittersweet chocolate covered marzipan.

Perhaps your pain is suffused

With tarragon

And melts so slowly over warm petit pans.

Perhaps your pain cries

High in summer trees

For fraises des bois in cream

And asks:

Darling, are you happy, or very happy?

Perhaps,           Finally,

Your pain stretches out next to you,

Trimmed green on a hillock

Of blazing white daisies

And goldenrod fringe,

And asks only      only

 for one more kiss.