Owl Canyon, San Bruno Mountain

It’s a soft gateway, slow rising slopes to either side,

winter wet-lands, now an easy stretch of dulled thatch,

a cushioned bed for the softest surprise of beige-green

blends of grasses, topped specific

with rich chocolate nuggets.

An artist’s pallet, to be sure, well beyond the range of this tongue,

and I wish for my daughter-in-law’s presence,

her depth of color-sense, to hear her words

over this familiar meadow, making itself

made known anew.

*

Dropping into the gully where the big bay lives and the stream,

I disturb some crows at rest in the high branches, who without showing themselves,

start up scolding and complaining back and forth in the shadows.

Startled myself, I say I’m only passing through, that I come empty handed

and will leave the same. But it continues, they continue.

The webs that grabbed my face along the trail

suggest few visitors of late, even the winter rains have run their course,

the stream dry now, gone—I have intruded.

I speak again, to offer a song, a prayer, and sit on the limb of that oak

in the deserted camp of the hermits. I chant so they can hear,

melodic as possible, but the crows remain unconvinced.

It’s only when I add the wish of peace

for all things living that they calm, only when I’m done with that

that they quiet and take wing,

leaving me alone to care for the silence of this place.

*

Coming out of the summer hills, where color

traces among mixed grasses, flies on petals and wings,

I arrive at the edge of the industrial park,

face to face with the red, white and blue, fully blustered

in the wind, beautiful, in its way

under the sun—I nod, so as not to offend,

but pass quickly,

quietly keeping my distance.

Sierra poems

blowing along

blowing along...

a little butterfly

-Issa, 1804

From the Sierra…

good news, a breathtaking abundance of wild flowers, now at its height in this late starting season. Just returned from two nights and three days in the Carson Pass area of the El Dorado National Forest, a few miles into the wilderness, off Hwy 88.

The flowers were stunning, walking through garden after garden of color beyond words; and at both of the peaks we managed to scramble, just below 10,000 ft., we were met by the joyous dancing of high mountain butterflies.

Lake Winnemucca,

under an arc of illumined star dust

--the Milky Way

flows over our heads, tossed

and turned by night winds.

**

Well, it was light,

before the sun, the sky clear

of everything.

So I went to the lake

to bathe.

Night winds

pushed the last of the ice

to rest against snow covered out crops

rising a thousand feet

above,

the rushed and dimpled surface

now coming, as I,

under the early reach of the sun,

in witness—a kind word

for this kind feeling,

not to explain or capture,

but to respond in kind

to the love

therein extended.

**

All throughout the day and the night,

snow-melt cascades,

its mark, the silent stretch of granite

into the waiting sky.

Marmots appear with the first fall of sunlight,

young and old, each atop

a single of the scattered rocks,

each alone, to sit and listen.

A place of ancient prayers, a time

of refuge—wishes are sung here, hearts

offered over the lake in the many tongues

found in the winds—whispers, here received.

And as the birds, two of them, call out

three times, then turn to take their leave,

I turn to my bowed shadow to vow

not to go back to sleep.

**

Back in the low-lands, again…

Becoming not so certain

at all, of most things, any

thing, tentative steps become

the certainty, a certain

kind of dance, light, attentive,

wondering where the music

falling itself off the tongue

will lead, wondering whose heart

directs the next joyous step.