poetry from poieses—the Latin, “to make”
the creative process of making verse
from the earlier Greek noinois which speaks to emergence
the underlying process of something new coming to be
Write, says Stafford, “whatever catches your attention,” follow
where the words lead, learn
what they want to say, learn
what it is you think
as you breathe anew…
*
**
***
December first
and the hawk
on the branch
on the tree
above the bay
looks at me
and flies away.
All these years
wondering of wanderers
and in one sighed utterance,
all’s in place:
mystic or not,
Emily Dickinson, like me,
is domestic,
is a friend, just a friend met
along the way—the meeting
never forgotten.
**
And so, as one who
has encountered
something speaking
singularly to me,
how can I not draw
and share my breath
this way.
**
At eighty,
endings so close,
beginnings beckon.
**
Her eyes too ask
her beloved elders
not to share
what she tells.
She is so much them,
she knows, but
her story
is hers.
**
Dense fogs hover mornings
early, wetted streets and petals
leaving even quiet
dripping.
**
Taking my own advice, I return
to the things I do, where the doing
is the reward.
**
When the scholar said he didn’t know,
I turned back to re-read his notes
more closely.
**
Winter mostly means
to bare its bones, slow us down
to look at our own.
**
Waking, thinking
“it’s too late to…“ falsely diminishes
light already fallen.
**
The way the rock rests
among scattered stones
aside reaching green brush
up from the slope: quiet
assurance—slanted planes
of earth tones, everywhere
at home.
**
and the simple manipulation
of fingers against things,
the smooth push and click
of tasks means
being alive—
**
Each act ever
wrapped in light—sun never hides,
light always shines—we rest
in shadows.
Every act wrapped in light,
each word a turning leaf—we wander
and wonder, but are never alone.
Each and every act
in light.
**
We don’t understand
that “beyond understanding” means
we don’t understand.
**
The thinnest roof in the house
is above our bed, the rain
most loud there, ripples
and trickles elsewhere, and
when sometimes stepping out,
it drops, padded whispers,
dropping like thoughts
remembered too late.
**
In the dream the woman says
“It’s as if time isn’t real,” and I say,
“The Buddhists say it isn’t.” And she,
“That doesn’t make sense—look at us—
don’t you remember when?” And I,
“That’s change.” And our fingers touch
and we remember now.
**
—after Mary Mcginnis
Like the blind poet
recently met, I left nineteen sixty-two
clueless to the treasures to be found
under these then wondering feet,
but have tried my best
to understand the longing, no,
to understand the knowing
driving it all, carefully learning, still,
to listen to that light and shadow play
that tells the trail.
**
My feet remember
earth’s feel, legs know
the body’s needs,
and as the mountain’s atoms
collide with mine, smiles
mark the delight.
**
—Day One
Climbed the hill
overlooking the bay
in first light,
waited for the sun
to break the horizon,
and it did.
**
—Two
The pen in the hand,
coffee warm, pages smooth,
the chill outside
scratched with rain—what more
can a person ask for, or need,
but perhaps to tell—
for to hear it said
is altogether different a thing
for the settling for us—
a shifting into place already known,
a coming home.
**
—Three or four…
Laid there, I just laid there
all that time day was beginning
all around me, laid there dozing
in and out, just letting it happen,
without doing anything about it,
letting go the do’s, gotta-be-done’s,
should be done’s, in favor of dozing
in and out—until, then opening
my eyes, the grazing fields
of body-feels opening, waking to,
waking in morning’s letting me…
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