Love stories

the love affair

of language with itself,

the way it is when left alone,

words let be

together,

as we listen in

**

it almost doesn’t matter what, 

it’s almost not what the poet speaks of

or is moved to speak of, but what moves

the poet to speak the way the poet speaks

that chooses who the poet is for us

**

Bees regularly

visit random flowers, one

at a time, each time.

**

Dappled sunlight drops

through the outside trellis, playing

shadows with the page.

Patiently, the page

coming next, waits this one’s fill,

for itself and more.

**

The quiet outside

creeps through the window, settles,

listens for my breath.

**

pressing ink along lines,

a ballast, an anchor pull,

sifting thick living stuff

**

inhale—exhale

        

        petals ripple

**

feet to earth foundation

    settles spirit, clears tangles,

        vanishes hesitations

**

Succulents blossom

this time of year, silently

withhold aroma.

**

Feeling remote,

utterly unable 

to determine direction,

turning to my feet,

to follow,

turning to the words,

to be sung—

utterly complete,

every moment, ever, 

fulfilled.

**

Fogs slip upper canyons, lift

and disperse on reaching the bay.

Leafed limbs quiver, branches sway,

but pines, holding somber

their morning,

stay steady, readily drinking

of passing bounties.

**

Nearing the end of the fifth month,

beginning the ending 

of the first half,

the year, a withering sheath, 

a bud pushing to burst. 

**

The hills hereabouts are turning beige. 

Morning’s moon is high, a whispered half,

edged with blue that calls me 

from somewhere I’ve been 

to remind me I’m home.

**

A faithful account of my living here, 

someone has said Thoreau said something

like that I should have known all the while

of myself—but once said and heard once, 

the rest then is sensed as done.

**

The mountain does’t ask where I’ve been,

why I’ve been gone, just takes me in,

giving me all it has in season, whispering

secret news to muscles and bones.

**

Barely perceptible,

just below ridge line distance,

a crease, a trace of trail

for those who know,

whose feet have tread,

legs have followed,

and it calls

in as clear a voice

as this old man

has ever heard.

**

Peet’s Coffee

on a Saturday slow

sidewalk, not knowing

who is to add the cream,

not remembering outside cafes,

maskless or not, forgetting

my phone, not wearing a watch,

wondering if this is the way

the new way will be.

**

There’s this rooster

living across the street

up the hill, back of things

up there. We’ve not met

eye-to-eye, but we do, 

each of us where we are, 

no thanks to me, we do

share these mornings.

**

The grand daughters, the three,

all the way across from Vermont, no less, 

first solo flight from Irvine, spirited away 

from across the bay, 

now tangled in bundles on the couch, 

on the floor, safe and secure in that who 

that we are together,

bulging packs and sleeping bags stuffed 

with the stuff of family story.

We breathe this, you and I, we linger

in this, but I don’t know how to write it, 

any more than I know how to write 

that which brought us to this, 

that brought you and me 

to all that this is,

so I won’t even try.

**

—Silence is, finally, the only perfect statement.

                                     AR Ammons

Things pop up, then us,

says A R Ammons, the poet 

who listens to the silence things are

for guidance to who we are 

in the words that come there,

found all around 

to hold and to hear. 

**

Met two people this morning,

walking in its light—

I usually meet none.

Both had dogs and smiles

and lighted eyes that 

talked in smiles too.

We talked of walking, the mountain,

the town, the sierra hills,

to name a few.

We smiled in the light gathering there,

which could have been just for that, 

and bid each other adieu,

as the light grew and grew.

**

Long longed-for quiet

sneaks in beneath layered fog—

wet, wind-left kisses.