Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Bed as world


My grandson’s pleasure
is to sit on the bed
under a sheet
teepeed by his head
while I lie next to him
and read. As if the sheet
has just fallen
from a high mountain,
the entire snow-cap
intact, and now he is
the mountain and I am
the foothills at his knee,
sending echoes up
to his head, the peak,
my voice a yodler’s calling
or a squirrel's clicking
or a bear's bellowing
or a train's chug-chugging
or a bell's ding-donging
across a deep valley
where children behind
gaping glassless windows
are falling asleep in the clean
cool down of their beds,
all around them
puffing complexities 
of another world.





Monday, January 27, 2014

nomadic days & nights - a new project



These are very intensely focused days for me as we get closer to the births of another grandson (due Feb. 20) and a granddaughter (due Mar. 12). It is hard to get my head around this, but my heart has been ready for a while. :)

But the world goes on. As you know if you've known me long, news of the world's great (and small!) collapses weigh heavily on me, as they do upon you, too, no doubt. I find that I must be inspired by something for it all not to pull me down.

So I decided to begin a study that would help me focus in on a particular area, to get the context of history, art, music, literature. Because I've lived in Istanbul, I chose that part of the world.

I have started a new writing space for reflecting on these investigations. I will be posting there occasionally to reflect and better understand the current state of worldwide collapse. I want to live neither optimistically nor pessimistically, but realistically toward a transformation of humanity. It is a silk road, washed in blood and beauty.

I will keep posting here too, when I feel I must write a poem or something.

If you are interested in the topic, I would love to welcome you to that space. But please, do not feel obligated. I understand how much there is to read, and not enough time. I do relish conversation about these important things, but I start nomadic days & nights primarily for myself. I need to write in order to reflect. This will help me keep at it.




Monday, January 13, 2014

21 crows


I understand Wallace Stevens’ need to write thirteen ways. A multiplication, an exponential transformation occurs when I see these shining birds on roads of snow.


They are black jack dealt on a white table,
fortune and misfortune as one.

A constellation of flying stars,
of beaks and wings on a white sky
in the world’s negative.

Hunger falling in waves
like wind from broken trees.

They are 21 nights of insomnia —
a new habit of wakefulness.

Glyphs of a new language,
shining blue.

A black coat
lifting when I pass
floating back down
to clothe its dying friend.

They are a bridge from
sky to tree

tree to possum

possum to me.

They are strangers
or lovers
depending on the light.

They are infinity
mile by mile



Really, this could go on and on. I wonder what you see in 21 crows?





Monday, January 6, 2014

Juniper night


Outside the small window,
the juniper where I first 
saw bluebird, so shy I
frightened him away a year
appearing at the back door.

The tree now winter-cloaked,
ermine collared, the afternoon 
darks to evening, wanes
to diamond night, hoary moon
half bitten, ragged edge
like the ice-blue berry.

Wind ferocious and quiet,
but the half-moonball does not
rock out of sight, its
brilliant light turns diffident 
edge into blue night.

Wind that bends
the fingers of earth,
blues them into moonblight,
points my hair at the light,
closes its eyes, softly
lifts and puts our rest to flight.