Bigger than Birdseed
A day, a measured unit. A twirl of the
world.
It had its bells and whistles, its come/go/ebb/flow.
I threw
Friday words at
you like birdseed
in my ATM way
and moved
through you, running the bases of my
lists, hours before the violence that
silenced your orbit.
I saw your body.
It didnt care anymore
about the goodbye
I would have wanted.
It didnt want an
apology
anymore
for my failed
promise, made at Lammas, to
always keep you
safe.
It lay relaxed, honest drapery,
exposed
meat and entrails
TV cops would have dubbed it
an undisturbed
crime scene.
Undisturbed.
And I stand/sit/stare/stammer,
looking
for Saturday words
bigger than birdseed.
Forty Different
Jaspers
Spread them out.
Tickle and tingle
and touch.
Candle and wash them,
ready for ritual.
The weight of a collection.
Pencil
lapis and lovers.
Forty different jaspers,
obsidians,
agates--
dyed Brazilians
in seductive slices.
Gaia seducing my eyes
with mottles
and swirls,
my chakras electrical sockets.
Picture jasper,
desert divination.
I see the landscape of
my thirst.
My amethyst pendulum,
swaying drunk.
Smokey quartz
to see through darkly
at phantoms waltzing.
I am a stage, a yoga mat.
Apache teardrops,
volcanic glass at
the
bottom of a cliff to
remember a massacre.
As if looking through
darkness to
see a tear
were magic.
Purple Movements
Purple Dawn on the hill
would open
orchids
with mental jaws-of-life,
boldly blazing,
But a quiet moment
has Venus
flytrapped her,
mirroring her bravada,
leaving her limp.
Wilted! Just add water
and she'll
daisy dance,
teaching Crayola-cheeked children
the sublime
cartography
of tripping on joy,
of squashing
trailers,
of walking on hot coals
with matches between your
toes.
It's a vision worth
open eyes
every time she climbs down
here.
walking meditation
the walking meditation class is poised
watching pumpkins swell
watching crow's feet creep
time lapsed
photography
to chronicle
an epic
of an
opening orchid...
a sunset...
high tide...
or charles remembering that
if you
walk slowly enough
you need only stand still
Broom Zen
Charles mother is dying.
He
has planed
800 miles.
Now he sweeps
her kitchen.
He sweeps the
hall,
2 seconds per stroke
by the mantle clock.
Get the
stairs while
youre at it,
his father says.
He sweeps
the living room
and the porch.
He sweeps the lawn.
His mother is awake.
She asks about
his plans.
He talks of job changes.
She takes out 3 papers
and
crunches numbers
on the first.
Charles makes
clarifying
calculations
on the second.
She rests.
And Charles waltzes the
broom.
He spreads out the pages
her
handwriting, his;
The choreography of cursive.
And one more
He takes the unused page,
with a pause for
all symphonies in the
ether,
unwritten,
and drags his dust pile
onto the page
with
his mothers broom.