Sequoia Sempervirens

Sequoia Sempervirens

from Wild Domestic

Some of these trees have been here
since Jesus walked on water
Some of these trees have been here
since Vikings drove their boats
onto the shores of Newfoundland
Some of these trees were seedlings
while the Mayans were worshiping time
while the dire wold and saber-toothed
tiger roamed North America
Some of these trees house creatures
of the forest floor in burned-out caves
at the base of their ruddy trunks
Some of these trees have become
living pipes, chimneys, hollowed out
by fire. They have grown beyond
their trauma and focus now
on the daily climb, the adding-on
of needle and bark, on nature’s drive
to rise above and see beyond
until the day when death will fell them
and the earth will add them to its riches.
We an be like these trees, pull on
the layers of living like fine
new garments, house the needy
in the caverns of our grief, grow
beyond the stories of our scars
stretch our branches toward
the bristling stars.

The Rapture

The Rapture

from Wild Domestic

How I envy
the furry black
yellow striped
caterpillar
that climbs
the lush stems
of the basil plants.
Sheltered within the deep
green redolent canopy
it spends its days
feasting
on the fragrant leaves,
unaware
that with each
delicious bite
it destroys
its gorgeous habitat.
By the time the leaves
are all reduced
to lacy stubble
it will be time
to find a resting place,
pull a shroud over itself
and wait for the dawn
of the next life.
How I envy
the furry black
yellow striped
caterpillar
that can destroy
its world
and retreat
to the succor
of a regenerative
cocoon.

His Opus

His Opus

from Moraine

Dog peruses the oleanders,
prodding with his body among
the poisonous leaves, lifting scent
into his snout through the trembling
black doors of his nostrils. He gives
every plant this close reading, ponders
each one, and the stolid lamp posts,
the hydrants, the bottlebrush’s wizened
bark. Go, I tell him, You haven’t peed
since sunset yesterday! I lead him
to the old familiar places but they
won’t do. He looks at me, his eyes
mutter something about a muse,
and I understand. We cross the street
to the homes with lawns and again
he is reading the complex layers
of scent left by his peers on lawns,
on trunks of birches, eucalyptus.
That’s it. Enough! I say, guiding him
back toward home. Finally in dry weeds
behind a palm tree the muse speaks;
Dog balances on three legs to compose
his latest opus.

Midsummer

Midsummer

from Moraine

I want to stay in this green world.
I want midsummer to last forever
but August and September crowd the door.

The day are growing short;
night arrives now in the sevens.
I want to stay in this green world

Where my courtyard is full of hopping birds
and sun glows clear in liquidambar leaves.
I want midsummer to last forever.

Regret belongs to the language of others.
Winter belongs in the shade of the eaves.
I want to stay in this green world.

September will pass and then October;
I will embrace them as sisters from heaven.
I want midsummer to last forever

Yet soon I will yield to the kiss of winter
and time will release me from life’s bright fever.
I want to stay in this green world;
I want midsummer to last forever.

Wild Domestic

Wild Domestic

from Wild Domestic

when it rains, the cats come in
to claim the comforts
of their entitlement:
spending days and nights curled
on a warm bed, doing nothing
while the dog, who only wants
to know them, paws at the door.

Raindrops swarm on the roof
the soaked ground sucks
at our footsteps. The cats lie about
entwined, too old now
even for the dinosaur dance
the fight game of their youth.
They nibble at their tinned prey
and even condescend
to use the litter box.

One black morning
they decide there’s something
they need to do out there;
they scratch at the door and scurry out
into the shifting scrim of rain.
I drive home later to find
the wilder one, the one with crooked tail
waiting by the door — a bird clenched
motionless in his mouth.

He will not suffer my appreciation
hurries instead to his garage
encampment. This is the work
of wild things, which I need not know about.
Inside, the dog, who only wants
to know them, listens
head cocked, at the door.

Moraine

Moraine

from Moraine

The dentist shows me photographs
of my teeth, their vintage fillings
glisten like mountain lakes,
their alpine peaks ground down
from years of carrots, nuts,
popcorn kernels. He shows me
fissures in the rocks, places
where the silver has turned
into wedges that threaten
to split my molars into shards.
It’s all happening now:
my knees buckle as I’m walking,
my uterus is tired, my feet deformed,
my nails have taken in fungi
my mind is heavy with memories
and opinions it has picked up
along the way like a glacier
acquires rock debris.

Keys

Keys

from The Belly Remembers

In the photo my children
run along a wet shoreline
on a bright day of whipping winds.
Jagged cliffs of red stone
and grey rise like bleachers
above the flinging sand.

He is the young man in baggy shorts
and sunglasses, hair flying,
grinning wide as he runs,
leggy sister on his back.
Her hood tied round her face
is like a mouth pronouncing “cow”,
but you can see in the narrow patch
of light that shows only a peek of nose,
the inner corners of eyes, a touch
of upper lip, that she is grinning too.
Her legs dangling through his pocketed arms
are bare, strong-calved in blue gym shoes.

He has not yet climbed
the rocky island that rises unseen
behind them in the green-white frothing
surf, and I do not yet know
that my keys lie somewhere hidden
beneath the blowing sand,
that it will take an hour of worry,
the help of strangers, and finally,
an unbeliever’s desperate plea
to Saint Anthony before the wind
will part the sand to reveal them,
the keys to everything else
that seems important in my life.

A Whore in the Kitchen

A Whore in the Kitchen

The long seam that runs
down the edge of my forearm
remembers the hot cookie sheet,
bisects the mouth-like blemish
below the elbow, a souvenir
from the broiler pan.
Its older sibling, a scar
like a thin, brown scowl
on the other arm
remains from some
now-forgotten oven disaster.

Before my body, it was the pots
that got scarred — saucepans
blackened so deeply by popcorn
that even a series
of baking soda cures
could not revive them,
frying pans forever mutilated
by a deadly mix
of confusion and neglect.

When my saintly husband
took over the cooking chores,
it was fine by me.
He liked to say
I was a whore in the kitchen,
and there wasn’t much to say
about saints.

I Miss the Cold War

I Miss the Cold War

from The Belly Remembers

I miss the Cold War:
cloak and dagger, spies, secret codes,
shorelines bristling with nukes.
Mutually Assured Destruction —
how cheerful that now sounds!

And I miss the enemy:
that broad-faced mass of men with sickles
and women with brooms; black-haired
multitudes in red Mao jackets.
Young Pioneers! Mustachioed dictators,
reds, pinko commie sympathizers —
how I miss the old, predictable adversary!

I miss the Red Phone, the Black Box
the Button, the Domino Theory, bomb shelters,
the constant threat of nuclear strike.
How safe, how comfortable, that ungainly
teeter-totter seems from the darkness
of this new and lonely perch.

How I miss being one of the good guys,
miss the knowing we were right.