Shelter 4

—Whose shelter? Which virus?

          —a lament

On Black-out Tuesday, 

immersed in tension-filled news

reports, all so reminiscent,

I turn to the garden

for light spring pruning

of branches stricken with curl,

a sheltered privilege—would

that it would be so easy

to cull the poisonous roots,

but the tree still stands.

Even for those of us not on the streets,

shelter has lost its luster.

**

**

Still below nearby crests, the sun

pushes first brightness 

into scattered scratches of cloud

that refract a softer translation

on grass-filled slopes, unhurried 

by the whispered glow.

**

As if busy-ness had finally looked

into itself and closed there 

around a quietness that spread 

through morning along the street 

like the limbs of a great tree

waiting to take all that we carry, 

if we’d just look up.

**

what the song bird knows of music,

she repeats, the melody

never tiring

**

And so, at nearly seventy-seven,

living’s intentions realize

an indomitable Yes 

gives the words

that draw one 

into creation-not separate, 

gives everything else as well, 

so that we can give song…

**

A drizzled mist meets me at the door

this morning, darkening 

ordinarily quiet Sunday streets 

with the added weight of extended days 

of quarantine…

     

yellow roses

     along the fence

gently scent

     collected droplets

**

The wooden Buddha sits

beneath the calligraphy

framed on the wall.

Neither says anything

that isn’t already heard.

**

The aroma

the yellow roses have

waits for you to give of yourself

first.

**

And the flecks of joy,

their living, wandered 

amidst thickets and blooms

of ordinary turfs,

are sometimes for a moment

lost in the tongue’s

attempts to tell of the fullness 

carried in even the barest 

suggestion of a lightened way.

**

Binging during the lock-down 

and a scruffy video eight-year old 

over-voices precocious wisdom 

about death as that precious shift

from somewhere to everywhere.

I know I wouldn’t have heard this otherwise,

so this dedication is to “Hush-Puppy.”

**

—For Neil Young

If dream is a memory with no place

to stay, 

touch is what we reach for 

in the night.

**

Nature means the arc of the narrative

of connectedness. Words are the threads

of our weave, the sound of the tracks we leave.

**

Extended quarantine often feels

like being inside,

when outside has long been

over-cast.

Grey light, flashes of sun

and sky.

Like being held in old age

and some nit-wit announces

that “this too will pass.”

**

**

Even for those of us not on the streets,

shelter has lost its luster.