Slowly, the Rain Comes

September. How long this drought has been.
Now the sky is greyer every morning,
overcast lingers closer to noon.
On the dead grass, dew is falling
but still we have not seen rain.

I’ve never seen this city look less green,
half the trees scorched and already turning.
No red in the maples, they just went brown,
the heat wave killed my last rhododendron.
Never thought I’d be here praying for rain.

Feel it out there beyond the Coast Range,
feel it gathering on the Pacific Ocean?
Feel the clouds rise on the jet stream
hover beyond the invisible horizon:
giant hulls freighted with a cargo of rain.

We’ve come to this; had to unlearn
the favorite curse of every Oregonian
struggling through wet winter’s pain.
God, forgive me for ever complaining
bless us, bless us, kiss us with rain.

Books Available
The Day of My First Driving Lesson
Country Well-Known as an Old Nightmare's Stable
High-Voltage Lines
Knocking from Inside

The Cry of Coral

Have you ever heard the cry of coral?
It is the tiniest of sounds
Hardly audible amid the ocean’s boil
And waves hissing on the sand
Shifting stones into a shining pile.

A blink of light from mother-of-pearl
Or from an opal on your lover’s hand
Is louder than the staghorn’s wail
Drowns out the weeping of the sea-fan
As one whisper in an Atlantic gale.

On the palm-fringed shore of some isle
Castaways walk their endless rounds
Wondering why the reefs look so pale.
Sailors may yet become unstranded
Coral cannot escape when oceans boil.

Have you ever heard the cry of coral?
Extinction’s whisper at the edge of land?
Have you seen what the beachmongers have for sale?
Washed-up fragments, dead-white, sterile
Fit jewels for a skeleton crown.

Books Available
The Day of My First Driving Lesson
Country Well-Known as an Old Nightmare's Stable
High-Voltage Lines
Knocking from Inside

A City In The Mist

Neither Lud nor London is this town where thoroughfares are floored with mud and skies are roofed with heavy grey cloud. Residents shake their fists and curse the rain never seeing sun. Grey is the city, only relieved by brown where thoroughfares are floored with mud. Bluffs hang over water, heavy-browed and the river downstream carries a spreading stain as far as it runs. Weighed down by water, the bluffs frown as the river rises, swelling to flood and skies are roofed with heavy grey cloud. Cliff-face crumples as if in pain knows itself undone. Slow slide of soil from the cliff’s crown, river water swirls red as blood. Fleeing on foot, desperate, once-proud residents shake their fists and curse the rain even as they run. Now that great strange city is drowned, the folk are scattered by landslide and flood. Like frog and fish in well, that great crowd of people lived as at the bottom of a drain never seeing sun.

White Spaces

Look at all the white space on this map: Unknown, uncharted, probably desolate lands "Here Be Monsters" written in some ancient hand. What brave explorer might fill in these gaps? I say I can. Well, how bad could it be? just empty spaces. Not to brag... I've been some dangerous places. I've waded quicksands and walked desert trails. Where others disappeared without a trace, I never failed. Incognita, this terrain... yet it reminds me of something I've forgotten, or perhaps never seen. Each morning of this expedition finds me staring ahead at some familiar scene I'd thought behind me. This landscape mingles dream and memory. Impossible, here in deep desert, I can hear the sea or a cool breeze smells of mountain air and pines. If these are memories, they are not mine not drawn from me. I've found some tracks, but whose? I fear to guess. They fit my shoes... by now, that's no surprise. Whatever I once knew, I now know less but know the truth, this waste's a thin disguise a mask of lies. Yes, I remember. Yes, I've been here before. I was the wanderer shipwrecked on this shore. I met You here, and then I went away. We always knew that I'd come back once more this time to stay. images decomposed from GreenArt Prints

The Oregon Coast: a love poem

Everyone loves you when it's hot and dry. When sunshine pours down from a haze-white sky, you kiss the crowd with scorching sand and cold salt spray. The endless pleasure of an endless summer day. Oh, everybody loved you in July! Now the sands are drowned in icy rain. All along the sad forsaken coast, sand castles are tenanted by summer's ghosts, wailing to the winter wind's refrain. No trace of summer's happy throngs remains. You knew when season turned, they'd scatter. These summer folk, like gaudy windblown feathers, could not withstand the windy winter weather. You knew they'd leave you when the year turned bitter-- leave you, leave us alone together. I'll leave you come July. Remember, amid the crowds of summer folk and summer fun, I'll come back when that season's done. When rain comes drifting in to dim the sun, I'll be back in November.

Object Of Desire

It meant nothing much to me. A bauble, a bagatelle something I got for free and thought maybe I could sell for a dollar or three. But when you saw what was in my hand, your eyes went wide in stunned surprise! And my jackdaw acquisitiveness died. "Take it," I mumbled, not wanting to be thought too easy. All of my breezy confidence crumbled and left me graceless and uneasy. I'll never know what it meant to you. This knick-knack, this flea-mart desiree. This much I know is true: Your heart was on my fingertips that day to crush-- or give away.

A City At The Brink

On the hill there's a city with golden streets. The folk there wear jewels and go robed in silk. This is a bright city and rules a shining land. A peaceful city rests at the desert's brink. Water flows beneath it. In the marketplace, they gather and meet, These folk who wear jewels and go robed in silk. Gold flows from hand to hand. They call it life, love, meat, drink. They'd like to breathe it. The marketplace is closed, though business is not complete. Dusk-children go begging milk. In this bright city that rules a shining land, They huddle at trash fires. The city stinks. And now smoke wreathes it. Cold ashes bear the prints of forgotten feet. Walls and roofs are fallen, or lean together a-tilt. Jewelled bones stare from drifting sands. A peaceful city rests at the desert's brink. No traveller leaves it. Nowhere in all this waste will you meet One who was there when the golden city was built. Ask, when you see the traces of their hands What did the jewelled people think? Water still flows beneath it.