poems—
Oct-Nov 2017
i’d understood the silence
as separate, as passing, in and out
taken and given away
then it settled one day, my sense of it
settled with it
as dustless sure as air
this silence
**
october 15th finds us in sun-drenched tropical
mexico, overlooking banderas bay
that flags the pacific’s reach
south and east of baha
but west of most all the rest
of this sprawl of a country
whose people meet the eyes
of strangers, speak ready greetings
that tell of the goodness
of the day
**
dropping into a day-dream
a new lightness in the world
at large, a learning
to let it be its own
delight
**
puerto vallarta, in october
at seven in the morning
is still night
orion traces the west
the moon and its shadow
hold to the south
bay waters break
and swell
and swallows wing in
slow coming light
**
on our first day on the road to the resort
the taxi before us halts, shaky hands wave
forbearance, skinny legs protrude the door
run to the wheels in front, where fingers lace
the turtle’s belly, thumbs press its shell
and the girl follows the not so secret thread
of shared life to its shaded understory
of sanctuary
**
releasing expectations
resolves tensions held securely there
allows contradictions room enough
to make the new
**
off-road coffee, black
burns fingers holding a tin cup
washes dry toast clean down
quite nicely
**
so much could be done
one would think
something would be done
and it is—just observe
closely, individual folks
this one and that
simply doing
just because
it’s the way
it’s done
to live right
among others
being breathed
with
**
hotel morales
this old building holds
night’s silences in its bones
lets only the smallest creaks
sound aloud
to remind us of time
and other treasures
**
original religion
—after cecilia vicuna—
the poem’s conception, the experience
of engaging, of attention taken
counts for more
than whatever the encounter’s form
words, the ancients knew
hold open associations, outer
and inner, outer to inner
words question and fathom
tides and currents
and depths
alike
words mirror and illumine multiplicities
are migrant sources of sustenance
that touch but do not bind
**
WHAT’S GOING ON
in this churning rage, this despair
of barely contained streams of ready rupture
to turn to one another open-handed
mantled in morning blue
is the work of unquestioned trust
in our collective commonness:
to allow the unanswerable
to be uttered aloud
among us
is the sound of unbroken evidence
of the unbreakable
**
guadalajara
after reading dylan’s last thoughts
on woody guthrie
a single star
draws the morning sky
between the buildings
over the open plaza
not a cloud
**
i’d never thought myself an artist
nor indeed of art much at all, but then
there’s the words, and other push
and pull, other shadows trailing light
and line and colors that appear
out of the whirl and steadiness
implicit in vision unfolding engagement
with the everyday—i don’t think
myself an artist, but then there’s words
**
the most subtle indications of genuine freedom
clearly suggest all others need be given
similar leeway—a tall order, wrapped in dynamics
of radical non-interference
firmly rooted where no stance ever
is pre-figured—readiness
to hear, to see where the world, outside
and in, would want to go—a poetics
**
guadalajara #2
circles on the map turned to circles
in the streets last night
that finally found the briefest alleyway
called corolla, hosting the coltrane cafe
hosting live jazz on the pavement
under the evening sky
local billing, local venue
for the limitless
**
an apple
curtained red
against white
linen, holding
crisp hues
of living
sustenance
**
one morning recently
waking to find
i’d been awake
all along
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