for a few seconds after waking before they disappear

The fragments linger:

an abandoned roller coaster

beside railroad tracks

and the voices of angry strangers

talking about molecules

and God and history;

Salt and honey,

words and flesh

in the sick light

of the emergency room.

The phone rang.

She said, your account

is nearly empty.

two hundred and eighteen dollars

is all you have left.

……..what!

Forget about bread crumbs

or finding the grail,

sometimes all that's left

are the pieces and the place.

the story is smoke in the breeze

a faint scent of something burnt.

Ash Wednesday

Mom is waiting in a

black plastic box.

Eight and a half,

by six and a half,

by four and a half

-inches.

On the bookshelf.

Waiting for this

pandemic to end.

So she can join Dad

in the headwaters

of the Kaweah River.

Little brother lies

under a giant oak

in Cannock Chase.

His black lab Dyson,

seemed to know it was

the place, two years later.

The temporary urns

are approved by TSA

for carry on luggage.

I carried Carolyn

to Bangkok. With 

a 36-hour delay

at the Hong Kong

airport when the

pro democracy

protestors shut it down.

I was ok with that

but slept the first night

on the floor.

With the urn

in my knapsack,

four and a half

inches tall, just right,

to prop up my head.

They weigh more than

you might expect,

not so light as what

comes out of a fireplace

or an ashtray. Four to six

pounds for women, more for men,

you don’t forget

what you carry,

to the sea,

the mountain,

the wind,

the river. 

Somewhere

The vineyard rows

flicker past

the right side

back seat window

of the DeSoto.

Like the legs

of a giant

hundred-legged

spider running

beside the car.

The hypnotic dance

of fields and furrows

sends the boy

into a trance.

He no longer

feels the pinch

of his well-scuffed

Buster Brown shoes.

Hank Williams moans

from the front seat

about whippoorwills

too blue to fly.

He sticks his coke-sticky

hand out the window

catching the air

like a wing.

Now he flies

over the raisins

drying on long rolls

of paper between

the rows of vines.

Over the canals

of cool clear water,

the cotton and barns

and oaks,

the palms that edge

the numbered avenues,

the dark humps of lemon

and orange groves.

The sun-warmed scent

of alfalfa and the whiff

of dust trailing a tractor

fill his nose.

He circles with the vultures

over a white clapboard farmhouse

where a tabby-striped cat

lies in the shade of begonias

watching a rooster herd hens.

We’re here honey.

Where have you been?

Put on your shoes. 

Candles

If sunrise reminds us

that the world

was born in fire,

does sunset warn us

that when the sun

goes super nova,

so shall it end

as stone and embers?

Every night we light

candles before we pray

in gratitude and ask

for grace and deliverance,

blessings for our loved ones

and the world beyond our door.

Candles on the altars,

in the temples

and the churches,

in the dining rooms

of kings, and the

modesty of hovels.

For saints and the departed,

black ones for the devil.

We carry them in processions,

float them down rivers,

burn them at both ends.

When i lived on treasure island,

the electricity often failed

so we kept a lot of candles handy,

but fumed about the absence

of television and the internet.

Reading by candle light is tiring,

how did our ancesters cope?

When the power was restored,

we said hallelujah,

now we can return to reruns

of Law and Order

and the latest posts

on Facebook,

snuff those wicks

until the next time

or birthday cakes. 

the dancer

her hands float on voyages

out past the reefs,

under the stars.

her hips sway,

the breeze stirs

grasses and fronds.

her heels clack on hardwood

staccato and sharp,

her hands weave castanets.

she wheels around campfires

scarf twined round her waist,

hair flying, silk floating,

her eyes flashing sparks

in the mirrors sewn into

her bodice.

she rides on the tears

of a violin moaning.

her feet slap packed earth

deerhide wrapped hammers

keep a heart beat on drums.

she crouches she springs

she twirls on her toes.

her arms reach out

to gather in the world:

a firefly, a fairy, a bird

a story, a lover, a ghost

she escapes from this world

stretches a hand that invites.

but forget about shoes,

i need some wings on my feet.

some things i saw in washington

i went to washington DC a few months ago,

to celebrate the new president and witness a little history.

that was very cool. actually it was pretty damn cold.

but anyway that was my second visit in a year,

the first time was just a normal visit.

you know, to look at the memorials and museums

the marble columned institutions.

it was late autumn, the edge of winter, just beautiful 

especially the red-leaved trees beside that sunken wall

inscribed with all those names.

the senseless fallen ones, as usual.

i saw myself reflected, faintly,

like a mirror behind the names

in the sheen of all that polished black granite

and on the steps below abe lincoln's calm gaze

some school children were clustered around their teacher.

he spoke to them about slavery and the civil war.

meanwhile, the ipod-wearing-spandexed joggers

were puffing steam on the gravel paths

between the monuments and the cherry trees,

the bronze statues and the ponds.

and there were twelve thousand little american flags

stuck in the grass in front of a shrouded empty podium.

the national christmas tree was strung with lights

and standing on a lawn way behind behind the white house,

sort of disconnected you know, and by the way,

the white house is much smaller than I expected.

it's kind of stuck right in the midst

of a very urban downtown setting,

it seems homier than the iconic seat of power.

maybe that's just me.

there's a lot of sidewalk hot dog and pretzel carts everywhere,

and commemorative t-shirts, three for ten dollars

we saw a bomb sniffing dog poking in the pansies

behind the iron fence in front of the white house

and a woman living in a tent right across the street, 

apparently she's been keeping a peace vigil there for decades,

I wonder if she's still there. probably forever.

and of course, i just had to see the watergate hotel,

it's this huge rambling pile and out front in a traffic circle

there's a statue of benito juarez  pointing his finger at the sky

where the helicopters drone around every few minutes.

we went to the smithsonian where

a lot of important historic stuff is gathered:

it's amazing, alexander graham bell's telephone

and thomas edison's lightbulb.

right next to the very first  swanson's tv dinner tray,

albert einstein's pipe and colonel custer's coat,

a pike from john brown's raid,

the first nugget from sutter's mill,

thomas jefferson's bible,

ben franklin's walking stick,

but also…..

marilyn monroe's white kidskin gloves,

mr rogers' sweater and archie bunkers chair.

they've got the greensboro lunch counter

complete with stools,

the 60 minutes stopwatch, the top hat lincoln wore

to ford's theater, john phillip sousa's baton,

beaded buckskin dresses from the kiowa.

all these things. this stuff with all it’s stories

and i tried to remember them as i stood

and saw my self reflected faintly

behind those fifty thousand names

chiseled through the sheen of that black granite wall.

i wanted some memories of my own

i wanted to stand and cheer a little history as it’s made.

with a couple million friends freezing our butts off

on the national mall.

so we went back to washington this january

and joined the river of people streaming through the streets

and arrived at our designated entry gate,

and everything just stopped.

we were crammed in so tight and no one’s getting in,

apparently the security checkpoint here was closed

so we tried to find another place to enter. and another. fruitless. closed up.

and it was cold. but ahhh, the air and space museum was open.

and they’ve got hot chocolate and coffee in a McDonalds cafe on the mezzanine.

and it has glass walls and a glass roof. with a view of the mall.

and what do you know,

a television mounted up behind the counter.

so there we were,

with a bunch of other refugees from the frigid breeze

listening to our new president speak

and we could hear the voices

of the millions roaring right through those walls.

watching the inauguration on a TV at McDonalds,

we flew 3,000 miles from home to be here,

and we're watching TV at McDonalds

at the Air and Space museum.

but you know, somehow it just fit. 

Baptists

At a dig in Jordan,
on a hill above the Dead Sea,
in the palace of Machaerus

where Herod Antipas

ruled and stewed

about John the Baptist’s

opposition to his desire

to marry Herodias,

a divorced woman,

the niche where his throne sat,

and the courtyard where her daughter,

Salome, danced, has been unearthed.

Herod was so entranced

that he promised to grant

Salome anything she asked for.

She asked for

John the Baptist’s head.

Herod had it brought to her

on a platter. Perhaps

that explains the antipathy

that strict Baptists have

to dancing. I don’t know

where their frowning

on card games comes from.

It was never discussed

at my Baptist Sunday school.

We sang songs about

how Jesus loved all

the children of the world,

and looked at Bible

stories picture books.

My favorite story was the one

about Daniel in the Lion’s den.

I’m sure we didn’t talk about

what happened to his accusers

and their wives and children.

I know the whole story now

and what I think it means.

I still like to dance and play cards.