Burning Blues

Tell me, has judgement come to pass?
The sky devours the burning grass.

Oh setting sun, have mercy on me
I'm a sinner hanging on a burning tree.

I'm a dead man walking on the razor's edge
See my footprints on the burning bridge.

I pray to God that I might be saved
I can find no rest in a burning grave.

The drawbridge rose and it rose so high
It rose on up to the burning sky.

Old Man River, hear my wail
My boat went down with a burning sail.

Old Man Sun, hear my moan
My dog ran off with a burning bone.

Pray for every woman and man
Born to suffer on a burning planet.

Available! High-Voltage Lines, Knocking from Inside

Dead Leaves

Everywhere you go now, leaves are falling
tender foliage of spring scorched
by summer heating up too fast.

Everywhere you go, young men are dying
scorched by the heat of hatred
burning up underfoot.

The streets are full of dead
crackling, burning bones and ash.
The hot streets are smoking
in the summer sun.

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Strength in Unity

You’ve all heard that story—a single arrow
easily broken, a bundle
resists. Here’s one I like better:

the lindens this year bloomed in such profusion
they perfumed the evening air and filled
the sky with drowsy-humming bees.

I got up close and smelled
a single flower. Nothing.
Stepped back and waited: a vagrant breeze

drowned me in sweet scent.

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A Woman of Far Harad

"He wondered what the man's name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil of heart, or what lies or threats had led him on the long march from his home; and if he would not really rather have stayed there in peace."

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

We watched the legions march away to war
in lands a thousand leagues or more from home.
We did not know what they were fighting for

or whom they served upon a foreign shore.
Flesh of our flesh, bone slivered from our bones,
we watched the legions march away to war.

Who knew then what the future held in store?
Did we believe that death was worth renown?
We did not know. What they were fighting for

was held behind a masked and silent door.
We only knew the voice of wind on stone
while we watched legions march away to war

and not return. Defeat was the report
but death was every waiting mother’s moan.
We did not know what they were fighting for.

We watched the legions march away to war
with banners bright, never more to come
back from the bloody fields of Pelennor.
We did not know what they were fighting for.

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Ridgetop Towns

In the east half of this state, the hills
run south to north; the start of basin/range
terrain that sweeps down through Nevada. Spills
of old Columbia basalt arrange
themselves in layered stacks, erode to rims
that frame the inter-mountain lakes in stone.
Like skirts of heavy black, they lift their hems
revealing painted clays and fossil bones.

And in the little tawny hills, the towns
that cling to ridgetops, and the tumble-down
of barns abandoned; shingle roofs that fly
at sight of storm.
            Roads can no longer find
rivers to follow. Water replaced by wind:
dry brush painting on an empty sky.

Available! High-Voltage Lines, Knocking from Inside

Darker Air

It is not only that my eyes are brown,
that (before this frost) I used to wear
sable in my hair.

All my life, unknowing
alike with knowing, I have breathed
this darker air.

All my songs a blacker shade of blue—
my cheeks are yellow roses. Darker too.
These aren’t colors I can choose to wear

or unwear. They’re painted on the inside
of the eyes that view,
that see me through a glass of darkened air.

Who knows me, who sees me true
and where?
I drink strong wine and fly in storms. My wings
are full of agate eyes
and yellow roses decorate my hair.
I breathe dark air.

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Arguing with the Cloud-Shepherd

A path leads away through a stand of bamboo
rustling and alive to the wind
but my feet stay rooted.

A stream rushes downhill laughing
to greet the distant sea. I am
silent and reflect no sunlight.

The wind reproaches my stillness, but I have no time
to argue with the cloud-shepherd,
busy with the Friend’s work.

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Private Weather

Unpredictable, my private weather

brings me fits of chills and flares of heat,

storms of rain and thunder-growling temper.

Nighttime season-shift: my icy feet

now kick the covers off and gasp for air

because they’re drowned in sweat. A pleasant change

from always wearing sweaters everywhere—

but makes me find myself a little strange.

I know what’s causing it: the silver streaks

that frame my temples, spreading spots on backs

of hands, the wrinkles falling round my neck.

This is a tranquil time, in most respects,

but just to keep me guessing (I suspect)

there’s personal climate-change in effect.

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Death Speaks to the Knight

THE SUN SETS GOLDEN ON THE HILL.

THE LAST GRAIN FALLS IN THE HOURGLASS

AND TURNS TO AN ENDLESS SEA OF SAND.

SO COME, TAKE MY HAND

THOUGH IT IS ONLY BONE

YOU NEED NOT WALK ALONE

UNDER THE STARS THAT NEVER FADE.

THE WORLD YOU MADE IS TURNING STILL

AND IN GREAT A’TUIN’S EYES, THE SIZE OF CONTINENTS

NEW OCEANS WELL.

WHAT LIES BEYOND ETERNAL SHADE

ONLY THE STARS CAN TELL.

Sir Terry Pratchett, 1948 – 2015

Quante canicula ille in fenestra est

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After the Blood, the Burning

I seek resolve and cannot find it.
A murdered boy and a city burning:
why am I always standing behind it?

There’s a social contract. Which of us signed it?
Does it condemn us to this rite of mourning?
I seek resolution and can’t find it.

I am not shackled, nor am I blinded,
not unaware, capable of learning
so why am I still standing behind it?

How many times must we be reminded
before, at the last, there comes a turning?
I seek an answer. I cannot find it.

Am I waiting around until someone’s defined “it” ?
These are old, old wheels that keep on churning.
I’m sick and tired of standing behind it

and I will not accept nor be resigned to it.
Take notice, world: you’ve had your warning.
The answer is there. I know we’ll find it.
The time will come when we won’t stand behind it.

Available! High-Voltage Lines, Knocking from Inside

What I Did Today

I wrestled the East Wind in the Coast Range and kissed salt spray from his lips.
I counted every creek and trailhead on Highway 6.
I stood next to Bill Stafford on a cliff above the Wilson River.
I had my feet flayed bloody by wind-blown sand.
I threw a can of Red Bull into the sea to free the unicorns.
I dug agates from a cliff that rose from the beach like an oliphant’s legs.
I hijacked a truckload of Tillamook Cheese and abandoned it at the food bank.
I sat in the alders drinking sunshine and eating moss and ferns.
I hung flags from every branch in a lake full of standing dead trees because today was Veteran’s Day.

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The Eyes that Draw: drawing by Shelby Denham

Straight from vision to neural network—
“No, I don’t stop to think,
thinking just gets in the way.”

The clever pencil crawls across the page.

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After Winslow Homer: Rustic Courtship and The Bridle Path, White Mountains

She looks down
from her window’s height
from her white horse’s back.

She knows the men will always be bigger, stronger
make more money
have the law on their side

Not for her the powerful arms, pitchfork, place at the head
Not for her the football fame or Olympic accolades
Not for her to ride astride into or out of danger

She takes advantage
or at least vantage
wherever she can.

She looks down.

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In Response to Muriel Rukeyser’s “Ballad of Orange and Grape”

I could not tell the difference
by taste or smell—
I could not tell.

I could not tell that orange was a real color
and grape a fruit
that could be green, or red, or black.

I could not tell one flavor of poisoned sugar from another.
Both names were lies for me to sell.
I could not tell

if anyone would care about these labels
the dying do not care.
Is orange hope? Does purple mean despair?
I could not tell.

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Terror

1980s Ford Bronco, everything electric:
seatbelts, windows, door-locks, lights,
brakes, power-assist steering. So when the electrical system went out
at the top of the cliff on 4th Street in Oregon City
with a teenaged driver at the wheel of the Bronco
her father had bought used the week before—
juggernaut.
Lightless steel screaming down the hill with four terrified teens trapped inside.

She rode that thing,
stayed out of the ditch,
made the turn at the bottom,
didn’t roll the car,
spun out in the four-way at the light and bumped the car in front of me
back into mine. Minor damage. No injuries.
Four hysterical teens, three shaken but relieved adults,
one dead Bronco and a traffic cop who dais:
“That was good driving, Miss,
damned good.”

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Bandon: Early Morning

Walking to the Barn in the predawn dark
I let myself in, turn on the lights,
move things around, set out clean mugs,
write important labels on minor things,
unlock the front doors and step out—
into the first beams of the rising sun.

The bare trunks of the lodgepoles,
a colonnade of light
etched against morning mist.

The smell of salt.

Cold air on my bare feet.

Everything else that happens today
will taste like this.

Available! High-Voltage Lines, Knocking from Inside

After Lines From Stafford’s “Citizen Here on Earth”

Let me carry a bow
a bow strung with psalms.

Let me carry a quiver
a quiver of shafts of light.

Let me fire arrows at my enemy
arrows tipped with flowers.

Let them return as raindrops.

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Unseen

tick of the clock
don’t look over your shoulder for the
sweep of the hands
though you know it’s there
and it goes on without you

if there really is a clock
and not just
an imagined sound

like the footsteps on the stair
when you were afraid to look
and finally looked—
there was nothing, not even
a shadow sliding down the banister
just a creaky step talking
to itself

like the strange noise in the car
that you couldn’t hear when
the mechanic had the hood open

like th sound of surf miles from any ocean
you heard it in your sleep and woke
clutching at strands of dreamweed
you heard it in your sleep and woke
salt on your pillow
you heard it in your sleep and
sailed away

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Heat Lightning

The night is shattered
by heat lightning, soundless violence.

Forks of brilliance spring from cloud to cloud
while dryness hangs like curtains between.

The night is shattered
waiting for thunder to piece it back together
for darkness to stitch itself whole
for rain to dissolve the bright edges.

The night holds its breath
in jagged sepia.

The night is shattered
by a stroke that doesn’t fall. Shattered
by the fear of a stroke.

Tense restless air
and leaves moving without relief
waiting for thunder.

The shattered night begs for rain
like a heart for tears.

Available! High-Voltage Lines, Knocking from Inside

Low Light Villanelle

for the first time in many months
i woke to low light overcast
there is no sun this morning

summer’s bones are grinning
out of the tall dead grass
for the first time in many months

birds shrug their dull fall-plumaged shoulders
shake off dust and look toward the south
there is no sun this morning

and they know it’s almost time
to hit that road, invisible to human eyes
for the first time in many months

through cumulus over the Siskiyous
to wintering grounds by the great bay
there is no sun this morning

i feel the earth turn under my feet
feel the road’s vibration through my soles
for the first time in many months
there is no sun this morning

Available! High-Voltage Lines, Knocking from Inside