Some things (in the chaos)

There were motes of ash

caught in the spider webs

in the vine beside the driveway.

Replacing the usual morning dew.

And somewhere, perhaps

a rainbow gleamed behind

the lightning and the curtain

of rain that never reached

the homes and trees and hills

transformed into charcoal

and rubble behind a veil

of flame and smoke.

Someone said they saw

otters in the creek

where none had been seen

in half a century. 

Which would be fine

if there were enough

salmon fingerlings

to feed them. There aren’t.

Plenty of room in our hearts

for otters and salmon,

and the calico kitten

joining our home real soon.

Does that love pour out

the window and down the street?

Around the corner, the country

across the sea?

It does for me.

As much as I can;

though it is hard sometimes

isn't it? To feel it more

Than merely to assert

I care, I love, you matter.

That’s where small creatures

feed us, lead us into tenderness.

Shelter that love carefully.

Cup it like a candle.

Don’t let the storm

that would gladly snuff it, in.

Dreambox revisited

To shed this flesh

like pudding spilling from a bowl,

become a bone jumbled frame

that neatly folds into a box.

 

A dark unpierced

by scraping hands,

Find the peace

of walls inside walls

-an onion adding layers 

or is that a pearl?

A scar of gristle

shrouding the shrapnel

of old nights tunneling

to the cracked and bleeding surface?

And a scream pleads,

unheard outside these walls

in the leafy streets

where i felt the sun on my cheek

and a breeze on my back

and the squeak

of my rubber-soled shoes

was loud.

And the taste

of this morning’s coffee

and last night’s cigarettes

is a metallic trace

that only fades away

with sleep. 

Is the plan, the purpose

the same? a reach

that clutches air?

Does it matter

in the long run short run,

it’s all running

of one kind or another

just the sweep of the second hand

or planets spinning through the void

and isn’t the truth to be found

in the pause between the breaths

when the motion, the swing,

the pendulum stops?

I. don’t. know.

so I take my hands

away from my eyes

and it’s still a morning in July

and the datura outside my door

smells sweet and the mockingbirds

are singing and I hear a faint voice

on a distant television;

A carefully structured voice

created in a studio

to calm and cheer or horrify,

depending on what’s needed

for the moment or the day. 

Better do some laundry

do some thinking

do some not thinking

find someplace inside this body

without this body,

a kernel, a cocoon,

a tearless cheerless peace,

a dissolving, clockless sleep.

If that were true,

I wouldn’t need to write it,

try to conjure that landscape

uninhabited by memory, dreams,

sweetness and pain.