Cake

This week, we were assigned to write a poem where we discussed something we aren't supposed to or, we don't normally talk about.  Here is my poem:

Cake

There is the fake, rubbery skin body
suit of today against disproportioned

dolls.  There is the sitting outside the glass
window looking into the storefront at
 
angled mannequins standing insect-still.
Body, like an aluminum pitcher,

gone too full, sweating condensation like
a secret, indecipherable language. 

There are all the bodies we walk into
like nested Russian dolls and the darkness

one body feels void of its sister. There
is the dawn cold breath of miles spun back

and forth in a pool like a skein of thread;body knifing passage into lukewarm

water.  Eyes searching the black threaded floor for a trap door that opens like a split jaw.

There are the word clouds.  The rewriteabletext of the self, redefined daily. There

is the noise that singes at the day like static.

And there is the cake on the counter that grins
like a friend despite what you've heard.

Day 30: The Lost Closet

For today's poem, I had to write about an article of clothing.  There is nothing more haunting than the glassed in closet on display at The House of Happy Walls.  Charmian London had an incredible collection of clothing.  But, what's hanging in her closet are just a few of her hundreds of dresses and tiny shoes (she was a very small woman).  This draft is a small little pantoum that thinks about all of Charmian that is still hidden from our view.

Charmian’s Lost Closet

When we think of lost artifacts
it’s difficult not to imagine
the last scene in The Raiders of the Lost Arc
the warehouse of crated treasure.

It’s a difficult picture:
Charmian’s extensive wardrobe,
a warehouse of crated treasure
What’s on display, behind glass,

merely s few selection of her wardrobe
tiny shoes, their brocade stitched in hidden messages.
And on display, behind glass,
The exotic birds of her dresses. 

Tiny shoes tapping out a morse code
a coded diary not to be found until after her death
muted sequined birds tagged and crated
in a warehouse in Sacramento.

Day 16: Stilled Life, Napa River

Stilled Life, Napa River

Dried thistle erupt skyward
from the earth’s scalp,
tangled in what is still rooted.

Behind, is the river of the mind,
still salt tainted.  Boats of all sorts
moored but at midday nothing afloat.

Birds of all sorts pick through
the remnants, graphing lines
above the dull-eyed river. 

And under the river is the history
of the river: a current that pushes
forward, away from the known.

Some days, I think I’ve discovered
it’s source.  The quiet whisper
beneath ground that worries up.

But most I am just a little weight
marking a path slowly, the cursive
of bare earth as it is revealed over time.

 

Day 14 and 15: Sweatshops and Sweet Rivers

The last two days I haven't had a chance to post my poems.  So, I'll just combine my post to contain both.  The first poem was written from a prompt about how losing fingers was ordinary.  Since I'm teaching The Valley of the Moon to my classes right now, I'm immersed in trying to convey the world of the early twentieth century sweatshops.  This draft explores that idea:

Sweatshop, Oakland, 1911

That the loss of a few fingers was normal
wear and tear. That the eyes got used to
the lack of light.  That the skin paled,
became papery.  That the sun ripped
open the day. That the soot never washed
out from under fingernails. That the back
never straightened again.  That the fingers shook.
That the days lengthened after the earthquake. 
Stitched closer and closer together by nervous
bosses. That the cracks were never filled.  Grew wider. 
That the sun strained to enter the greasy windows
until night broke it. That the irons singed.
That the beams ached every time a train
 passed. That the girls looked up nervously to see
what others had done.  That girls fainted regularly.
That young girls of seven or eight were fastest.
That they secretly sang to each other under their breath.

The second poem was written from my experience of visiting Tolay Lake on a field trip with my son Max and his third grade class and beginning to read Charmian London's biography about Jack London called The Book of Jack London (Books 1 and 2).  Tolay Lake is no longer a lake, but it is a spectacular place where, if you hike into the hills, you can see all of the surrounding mountains (including Sonoma Mountain where Jack London lived). 

Sweet River of Feathers

From above Tolay lake you can see
the red marsh and Tule spread like
so many red feathers.  Then beyond,
the cool, shimmering wandering
of the river.   No lake.  Just a lake remembered.
A place where once so many came
to leave behind something.  To look out
and see the ring of mountains
that surround us.  Where can a lake
only made of feathers carry us
anywhere, but gently. 

This morning, I read Charmian’s account
of her first meeting with Jack. How
it wasn’t love at first sight.  His bowlegged walk,
his shabby clothes and wavy, unkempt hair.
But also grey eyes, lips that always seemed
poised to smile and a kinetic curiosity
that seemed to illuminate his whole face
as he spoke.  It would be years before
they would meet again.  And the place they met
would be gone, the Old San Francisco,
lost in the earthquake and fires.  But,
always she would look out from this place
as to where her life began again
as to where all the mountains ahead could be found.

Day 13: Visiting Jack London State Park

Today, we had to write about being more powerful than we imagined.  I immediately thought about Jack London State Park where I first confirmed the fact that I am a writer and where I have continually returned throughout my life.  Here is my draft:

Visiting Jack London State Park, Glen Ellen

Perhaps, what we can gather here is slow coming.
First, the sixth grade school field trip, yellow bus,
walking to Wolf House in giggling groups
until we found the ruins and quiet
settled in, hanging in the redwood boughs
like a low fog.  Then, the need to return.
continually.  Museum artifacts that
pile up in the mind: photograph of
Jack staring into camera, half-naked,
the notes pinned on clotheslines above his bed
the wheel of his homemade alarm clock and ,
Charmian’s tiny, fashionable clothes.
So many visits that the stories bleed
into one another.  Here, where I am
more powerful than I ever imagined.
Even days when bones push through skin, revealing
the fragility of what lies beneath.

Day 12: So This is How Jack London Died

This is How Jack London Died

The day was overcast, like this one. 
It was November after all and the sky 
held its breath like defiant child. Mist 
clinging to Sonoma Mountain like a thin veil. 
The starlings circled the stone barns 
in dizzying shapes. The eucalyptus grove moaned 
in a light wind. A few branches clattering 
to the ground. The ground was moist and fragrant. 
The night before Charmian had looked through 
the window from her sleeping porch to his
and saw him sleeping peacefully (the first time in weeks). 
She chose not to disturb him and lay down 
in her own bed--just a wall of glass, a bit of air away 
and slept (the first time in weeks). When she awoke
she was in another world. She startled awake
into the heaviness of a day she'd never resolve. 
He was already gone in spirit. His kidneys had shut down. 
His body lay slumped on the floor. They tried-- 
lifted him, fed him coffee, walked him like a giant stuffed doll.
The parade of doctors ferried in, directing remedies. Until,
his breath caught in his throat and stopped. 
And since it was November a light rain fell, 
disrupting the path of birds, strengthening 
the earth's fragrant scent.

Day 11: Hew Paints Goats

Today was a tough prompt that resulted in a letter poem.  I've always been fascinated with the fact that Jack London's ranch was on Sonoma Mountain.  Sonoma Mountain is one of the tallest mountains in our region.  From it's peak you can see all the way to San Francisco and beyond.  Sonoma Mountain also figures as part of the Coast Miwok creation story.  I always wonder what Jack London knew about Coast Miwok folk lore.  Here is my draft:

Dear Jack London -

Each building on your estate is hewn of stones gathered from our local quarries.  And so many quarries still advertise that Jack London quarried stones from here! But, stones are complicated around here.  Limestone flakes into the soil, metals what we grow.  Then, deeper, you find sinks in.  Take, for instance, Annadel State Park, to the west in Santa Rosa, which was once a quarry where Coast Miwok and Pomo Indians were interned.  The thick stones they dug out, and carried, to stack into neat rock walls (some of which still stand) fenced them in.  You must have heard about those quarries.  You, who lived on the very flank of Sonoma Mountain, or Oona-pa’is in Coast Miwok must have known about their creation story. How Coyote-man perched on top of Oona-pa’is while he made the plants and animals of the region, before creating the people.  At the heart of every mountain is a wealth of stones.  That morning, in 1906, when you and Charmian rushed to the peak to see what the earthquake had done, you found only destruction in all directions.  As if what was under us had risen up to undo what had been done.

 

Day 10: Elegy 1 for Jack London

I'm catching up today so I had to write two poems in a day.  This, the second, is about the tragedy of Jack London's death.  Yesterday, I finished Earl Labor's biography Jack London: An American Life which (expectedly) ends with Jack's tragic and early death.  Every time I read about his death, about the months leading up to is and the ailments he suffered, it's like watching a friend die.  It's awful.  It's especially awful because from the perspective of modern medicine, his ailments seem dire, but fixable.  Had there been an ambulance or an ER, or even an earlier diagnosis of Lupus (what biographers like Labor think he suffered from his whole life), he might have lived.  Here is a draft of my poem written on the prompt: "When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras."

Elegy 1
When you hear hoof beats, think draft horse, think barns
hewn of unmatched stone, think silos standing
up against mountains (still after 100 years)
think cactus without thorns think oak leaves think
the whisper of creek think path to a dried
up pond think how cool the water once was
Think stone rolled over an urn. Think poison oak tall as trees
Think the ranger who said the Miwok ate
the leaves to cure themselves of the poison

Think blue ribbon think Sacramento State Fair
think from his window he could see fireworks
too ill to leave the hotel (think Lupus, undiagnosed).
Think how to pass a cure from here to there?
Think only days left. Kidney stones. Unable to eat.
Think the body gathering what it can't let go.
Think last words think Charmian's desperate plea:
Mate, please don't leave me. Think smile, then gone.

Day 9: Found Poem on Jack London's Wikipedia page

I've never written a found poem before today, but the prompt was to try something you've never done.  So ... here is a "found poem".  A poem where every word is taken from the current Wikipedia page on Jack London.  I don't think I found much.  But, it was fun to try.  This poem is taken from the section on Jack's first marriage to Bess.  It was during this time that he wrote some of his most successful novels (including The Call of the Wild),  but though they had two daughters together, Jack and Bess weren't happily married and Jack had affairs including with  Anna Strunsky,with whom he wrote The Kempton-Wallace Letters.  I followed a pattern and wrote down every fifth word.  Then, just punctuated what I had.  Not sure it's a poem, but, it was interesting to try!

Found Poem – Wikipedia Page on Jack London
Born author, he, the commercial one, and
his best of set "To Build a Fire" as
of The Sea Wolf. Advocate with his
non-fiction.
April 7, 1900 was part friends years.
Stage Stasz that out friendship
they Kingman together clear
did that to during his
The Kempton-Wace Letters philosophies
"Dane Kempton's" romantic London
for on the contrasted known

Bess London child January 15, 1901
later both Piedmont, California
of The Call of the Wild. In was
by close were was gentle
Cloudsley Johns in suspect marriage devoted
tell evidence she me for terrible
back home won't the if Stasz
"code" that prostitutes venereal

Bessie moved and on

Day 8: You Left Me in the Woods

I've always been fascinated by Jack's second wife Charmian.  And this draft explores the deep love she had for her "mate" (as she called him).  Toward the end if his life, Jack (who was very sick from a number of ailments including Lupus), attended a Houdini performance.  Since he was a celebrity, Houndini called him up on the stage.  I've always been fascinated by this episode and how a few years later Houdini would court the mourning Charmian.  Here is my (quick) attempt at a draft.  There is much more to do on this one!

You Left Me in the Woods of this Life

In the last months of Jack's life he saw
Houdini perform at the Orpheum theater.

The audience packed the gold-leafed theater. From it Houdini plucked
Jack, brought him to the stage in a sea of applause. Big boyish grin, bloated, but still appearing strong, Jack stood center before Houdini said the words. Made him disappear.

After Jack's death each night Charmian
played her Steinway piano to the open
mouthed windows. Her notes mingling in the air with the whisper of nervous leaves.

But is would be Houdini who would reappear, not Jack.

Day 7: Make Them Float in Your Mouth

Today's prompt made me think of nothing but islands.  H.D.'s wound island, islands as symbols of sexuality, and Elizabeth Bishop's Robinson Crusoe.  I've always been fascinated by islands ever since the day at 15 that I looked across the span of Matsushima Bay near Sendai Japan.  So, it's no wonder that this prompt took me to the islands that Jack London visited on the Snark.  This draft explores those years of his life.

Make Them Float in Your MouthOn the cruise of the Snark, Jack London, and his wife Charmian sailed to Hawaii, Tahiti, Samoa and the Solomon Islands.

If you want a story, you have to look for it. You have to sail
your leaky boat next to the hissing lava as it enters the sea.
You have to go to Molokai and see for yourself the small girl
who, missing a nose or an arm and covered with sores joyfully dances.
You have to ride a 75 pound surfboard and fail all day. You have to watch
the plantation workers cleave the sweet fruit with machete again and again.
You have to endure sores the size of baseballs that seep and cling.
You have to go up river into the luscious green tangle
of what is unknown until the flowers emerge: red, hibiscus-like
large enough to contain the whole sunset syrupy sky.
You have to find that island. Make it float in your mouth. 

Day 6: Untitled Hate Poem #57 for Jack London

For today's poem I had to write in response to the prompt: "Untitled Hate Poem #57".  Since my project this month is to write a poem-a-day about Jack London, I had to write a hate poem about Jack London.  This prompt made me think about the complicated relationship I have with Jack London's biography and how, by becoming a writer, I had inherited expectations about reading and writing practices from my earliest literary influence.  Writing this poem was definitely a strange exercise.  Here is my draft.

Untitled Hate Poem #57 for Jack London
The path that I'm walking is well worn. Peels like manzanita. Sky blooms blue even through the reach of thick armed oaks. And at first following you I felt strobbed in light. I'd place my foot into the muddy print you'd carved out and walk on. But lately, I've gotten caught in the mud of you. 
The shining cover of your new biography caws from tree branches, like an agitated crow. Reminds me how as a child I could grow into you: learn to sleep less, write more but now life has snuck into the scene. The children won't sleep or I need to pick them up from school, or we are out of milk/eggs/bread/time.
How you breathe down my neck these days Jack London! This year, I will be 40, the age you were when you died and still I stand in the shadow of your life: how many books have I written? Surely, not even a fraction of yours. How many words do I write a day? Does marking up student papers count Jack? How about emails back to my students? Or, to my sons' teachers? Does it count if I watch Homeland? It has a really intricate plot!

What do I need to do to walk away from you Jack London? Leave this landscape that seeps into me the way it seeped into you? Or keep walking on the moist soil until it peels enough for me to see it.

Day 5: The Year Jack London was Born

I've been teaching my favorite novel The Valley of the Moon to my community college students for several years now and every year I struggle to set up the biography of who Jack London was and what the world was like over a hundred years ago when he was writing and publishing his work.  Recently, a friend of mine sent me a link to Professor Cecilia Tichi's lecture on Jack London.   In this lecture, Tichi does an amazing job setting up the world Jack London was born into by talking about the 1876 Worlds Fair in Philadelphia.  It's a clear introduction into how divided our country had become between the very rich and the extremely poor and child labor and lack of labor laws.  What gets me every time I watch the lecture is her reference to gigantic steam engine that was basically used to power everything at the world fair and more importantly what isn't seen by the spectators: the steam engine dirty little secret (men shoveling coal for little to no money).  Here is my draft of a poem about these two worlds.

The Year Jack London was Born
At the 1876 World's Fair
(Being an able man there are always)
in Philadelphia everything was
((hours stitched tight with coal dust.)
meant to reveal to the world's eye
(hours that sweat and blur into days)
United States' industrial prowess
(the stoop of too many, the scoop and drop)
and innovation. And at its center
(of mute black coal. Being able there are)
was the coal powered steam engine that ran
(years to stoke the machine between then)
nearly everything at the exhibition.
(and now. Who will scavenge what we lost?)

This is Not What I Meant to Say or Myths About Jack London

Yesterday, I attended Susan Nuernberg's talk on the Jack London's Fame.  It was an amazing talk and got me (in the midst of my Jack London writing project) all fired up about how many lies and half-truths have been circulated about Jack London.  Today's prompt comes from two sources.  The first is my weekly writing group where we were assigned to write a "kill list" like the one that has recently been published by Josef Caplan.  The other was to write a poem in response to "This is Not What I Meant to Say".  What I first came up with was long and windy.  Apparently, when it comes to writing a response to statements such as Jack London is a racist I have a lot to say. But, instead, I used simplified and repitious format of the kill list.  Here is my draft.   

 

This is Not What I Meant to Say or Myths About Jack London

The cottage where he lived on Sonoma Mountain was deserted after his death and and after the death of his second wife, Charmian’s.

Jack London’s life was his greatest book.[1]
Jack London was born poor. [2]
Jack London worked hard and pulled himself out of poverty.[3]
Jack London worked to support his family.[4]

In the 1970s a huge safe was discovered in the dilapidated building.  It was filled with Charmian’s diaries, original manuscripts and notes.

Jack London’s mother never loved him.[5]
Jack’s London’s mother tried to commit suicide.[6]
John London was not Jack London’s real father.[7]
Jack London never got over finding out William Chaney was his father.[8]

Through fundraising efforts, Jack London State Park raised enough money to restore the cottage (where Jack and Charmian lived). 

Jack London was a racist.[9]
Jack London was not a true socialist.[10]
Jack London was a womanizer.[11]
Jack London couldn’t write a female character to save his life.[12]
Jack London was too prolific.[13]
Jack London wrote to make money.[14]

Great effort was put into the recreation of the cottage to its original form.  Of note, are the curtains which are reproductions of the curtains found in photographs of the cottage, Jack and Charmian’s separate sleeping quarters, and Jack’s office where he and Charmian wrote his books.

Jack London was an alcoholic.[15]
Jack London burned down his mansion Wolf House.[16]
An enemy burned down Wolf House the night before he and Charmian were to move in.[17]
Jack London killed himself.[18]

But each year the woodpeckers return and borrow back into the once feral house to leave their winter acorns.

---

[1] False.

[2] False. 

[3] False.

[4] Half-truth.

[5] False.

[6] Half-truth .

[7] Half-truth.

[8] False.

[9] False.

[10] False.

[11] Half-truth.

[12] False.

[13] False.

[14] True.

[15] Half-truth.

[16] False.

[17] False.

[18] False

Poem-a-daying in November! (I keep looking up from my desk and seeing ghosts)

Well, once again it is November, and once again I am beginning the daily practice of writing a poem-a-day for the month.  For two months out of the year each year I try and keep this practice.  This year my poem-a-daying comes with a project in mind.  I'm reading Earle Labor's new biography of Jack London Jack London, An American Life  and teaching my favorite Jack London novel, The Valley of the Moon.  So, I'm entering the month with a poetic project in mind: a digging into the idea of Jack London that I've carried with me since I was in sixth grade and first visited Jack London State Park in Glen Ellen.  It's an image I continually revise (and will continue revise likely, throughout my life). Today, we were given the prompt: I keep looking up from my desk and seeing ghosts.... Here's what I wrote as my draft in response.   


Jack London, Biography

1

Out the window: breathe
of ghosts spindled on tall trees
only glass between

2
There is image that hangs on a museum wall.
Then, there is the ghost the presses against the glass for years to come.
Hot breath. Fog by day. Steam that twists through dreams at night.
In between the images rise up to the surface:
thought to memory to metallic silver
a stop bath on time
stitched together out of the thick thread of chance
a life cobbled out of pieces.

3
There is also the land to consider.
There is the shell of building out of rock.
There is the stories about these buildings.
There is the walking on the soft earth between buildings
and the smell of the earth as you walk (which must be the same scent?)
There is the shadow of light as it passes through the Scrub Oak and Manzanita.
There is the fog that lingers on the terraced side of Sonoma Mountain.
And in between, there is the glass of time
without passage between the life lived
and the life found again in the fragments
we gather up.

Lessons in Sea Glass

This week, I gave our group the assignment of writing a poem in tweets.  I read Jennifer Egan's incredible story she wrote for the New Yorker awhile back where she wrote in segements of 140 characters or less and the whole thing was published via tweets that were posted a few minutes apart.  I've been haunted by the form eversince.  Last week, I went to a reading at Sonoma State Univeristy where I got to hear Lyn Hejinian and Paul Hoover discuss their concepts of Postmodern poetry.  It was an incredible talk, but one idea I walked away with was Paul Hoover's suggestion to write a poem via tweets much like the Jennifer Egan story.  Here is my attempt of a draft of a poem written in this form.

Lessons in Sea Glass

The field I stood next to was unsteady.  Covered in dirt and a patchwork of grass.  The man in a track suit kept spray painting lines to find order. 

Mornings were fogged in.  I couldn’t smell the salt in the air but knew the cool sea churned the cliffs nearby.

The town was mappable as if it had just arisen from the very sea still dripping.  I talked the pavement down into a path.

On the second day, the fog held its breath and we found a sea cliff and beneath it the carnage of tumbled sea glass.

It was too fogged to see through.  Signs were posted up and down the beach:  Collecting Sea Glass Prohibited.

I taught a lesson on the word Prohibited before I let go of his small hand.  Before he wove his body between every rock and crevice the sea had left.

Hours later, when we returned to the field we could no longer see the field, or the streets.  It was as if the city had once again disappeared into the sea.

I felt the weight of his hand but couldn’t be sure he was the same boy.  His hand was covered in callouses and scars.

We sat at the edge of what we perceived to be the field.  The man in the track suit had given up on lines the color of clouds (no one could see the difference).

The boy tumbling like sea glass.

When the fogged cleared, we were in another place.  The man with the tracksuit threw up his hands, so we left the field again to find what had emerged.

And we walked it down.  Foot by unsteady foot.  Salt and peppered pavement freckled with gum, sparkling like sea glass.

Until the hand I held became his hand again.

Other

Today we were to write from a Jean Valentine poem called "Once".  It's a haunting poem for it's quiet, enigmatic ideas that get under your skin and seep in.  So, I had a hard time writing from it.  But, here's what I dredged up from the deep as a draft.  It's for my son, Max who is eight years old.

Other

Once there was a shadow –
like a dark basket—

where our fears rested like moths.

Then the light shifted, got close, and they swarmed.
Pulse becoming a rhythm, predictable as a heart.

When the men encircled us
their arms, thick as ropes,
wove together like a basket

and we became
the yolk to the thin eggshell
of perimeter,

wishing for the nets of swallows
to swoop from sky,
fish us out.

Seismic Shift

This week, we were to write off of the poem"Carpe Demon" by Lucie Brock-Broido.  Brock-Broido's poem offers a muscular knife into the perspective of childhood.  My draft I've written in reponse explore the idea of a bridge between the life before and after childhood.  It plays with the idea of time being rewritable, but that when it is rewritten (unlike code) it's source is utterly changed. 

Seismic Shift

In the dark car, the radio fuzz flaps its tongue over the slack blue bay.  Thu-thunk-
thu-thunk of tires on pavement carefully broken then threaded to contain rupture

then loss.  The dumb sea spackled in spun clouds. Bridge between before and after—on one
side is a dirtied kneed childhood carved tunnels in high grass, the whisper of creek.

On the other is after—several cities, so many hours sitting in
cubicles coding, rewriting the day like a wiki.  That is until the jump:

until feet leave the metal ledge of now; until the bodies falls and twists alphabets
of desire until ice cold water baptizes you back to where you began.

This time awake.  This time watching and listening.  Small bodies spelling the tall grass into new worlds.
The creek ruptured, but rewriteable, threaded to contain its new banks.

Their Bodies Are too Much With Us

This week, we were to write in reponse to Wordsworth's famous sonnet "The World is too Much With Us" For some reason Wordsworth's poem brought me back to motherhood.  To all of our confidence and studied knowledge that we bring into it and then to the reality of how raising human beings is such an amazing and difficult task.  How it is something you can't possibly know how to do, no matter how many times you try because every child is different.  And how, especially in the case of raising a child who is different.  One always doubts oneself and worries about whether one is doing it right.  Here is my draft:

Their Bodies Are too Much With Us
After William Wordsworth

Their bodies are too much with us—
flesh from water to air to light—
They linger in the mind like a hive of bees;
butterfly kisses on cheeks, sticky hands, the shadow of dirty knees.

At birth the path out is direct and known—
it’s the after, this unlacing of what’s perceived and built up   [like a hive]       
where we become Herodotus: note moods, growth rates, amount of joy perceived.

When the Behaviorist asked me, what do you most want to give your children?
I said, happiness.  No, she said.  You are only here to contain.

Since then the hive has split open.  Honey dripping down arms and legs.

I have a sheaf of parchment, and write note on top of note, a palimpsest.
Their tiny bodies buzzing in my mind, like a jar of bees.

 

If/Then in Autumn

This week we were assigned to write something humurous.  What I realized about myself is that I am awful at writing humor.  So, I wrote something lyric instead.  I've been haunted all week by the beautiful bark of the eucalyptus trees I pass on my drive to work.  Here is my draft:

If/Then Autumn

If the bark scrolls, no pulls away, no whirls away toward an unexplored infinity on every eucalyptus tree.  If your car, driving past, pulls from the movement a velocity toward awe.  If the leaves scent and litter your dreams.  Wonder what is written beneath that bark.

If the alligator skinned bark of the willow pulls toward sky and its long-armed limps weave in the wind. If you sit in the grass beneath its shade and think only of the miles of roots that spell it’s (keeps ship afloat).   Wonder if they spell escape or the language of knowing a place from the ground up.

If the single oak on the bare hill side speaks of solitude.  If you can’t pass without finding it crowning the hillside.  If the fog holds its breath over your sight.  Lift the tree in your mind toward the horizon.

If the air is grenadine with dawn and swollen with the dawn song.  If the hummingbird finds you high up on the porch away from the nectar.  Lift your eyes to that whir and thunder of wing.  Let that movement take you to flight.

Life Between Elements

Today's poem was inspired by the prompt to tell the truth but tell is slant.  Here is my draft:

Life Between Elements

The writer who spoke only of frozen
seas and the sea birds who linger then land
only to stitch lacy perimeter
between what is our realm and what is theirs,

unexpectedly discovered the dolphin’s
left body; that last greying sun-dried weight
of almost picked clean flesh before the next
realm opens like a slack-jawed sky.  He was

lost to it, and to the way life redirects
eddies around what the crows have warned us
to avoid.  For he had not read the signs
was in the process of rising himself

Sea birds drying their wings like scarecrows on
jagged rocks.  Heart becomes sea; not frozen,
but cold and deep enough to be sewn into lace.

Ishi Tramontane

This week, our assignment was to rewrite an old poem using some drastic revision methods.  This is a poem I never finished but had started back in April during my last poem-a-daying stint.  I tried some bold revisions and came up with this next draft. 

 

Ishi Tramontane

1

The paradise we tend is permeable.
There are afternoons when we walk back up the gravel drive
from the bus stop, rocks popping beneath our weight,
when the shadows that lean in fill me with my own childhood fear:
visceral, it reaches its metal fingers to the back of my throat.
It is a mountain we continual climb toward home.  Toward truth.
Beyond the mountains is where paradise has any hope to begin.

2

In 5^th grade the kids begin a unit on Native Americans.
After school, my son asks me:  Do you know about who Ishi is Mom?
Of course.  I say.  But I can’t see the perimeter between
what he’s been told—and the truth; what’s been walled in
to protect his innocence.  Do we discuss how many massacres Ishi survived:
Three Knolls, Kingsley Cave? Or, how the stones of Deer creek
were covered in blood.  Or, what desperation must have led Ishi
out of the dark woods into the arms of  those who had slaughtered all he had loved.
Or, that Ishi was not his given name.  It is only the Yahi word for man.
His name died with his people. And that these facts are only small pieces of the whole
tiny moths flutters toward a light. How much will carry him up the mountain
how much will paralyze him with fear.  I want to tell him everything I know.
Instead I say You are lucky, when I was little, we never learned about Ishi in school.

3

At dawn, a rosy light covers new buds
on dark fingers of Gravenstein apple trees. 
Across the valley, a flat scallop of hills rises into light
as if to claim perimeter. Paradise is this—
what truth we wall in.  But with the dawn come
the sea birds: gulls, cormorants, cranes and all
they carry back and forth between—