What the Muses Leave Behind

Poplar pond is brimming up and over countless toes of trees that bask nude in the steely sun of a solstice sky walking with a black dog in the lavender twilight we savor the moment watch Venus and Jupiter cavort always westward heralds of another day another chance to count our blessings in a new world so fresh and full

It must be the fat curves in 2008 that inspire this belly of harvest that hangs like whole notes along a musical staff that rivals ADM and Monsanto that invites me to fill the cracked jug that seeps empty, fills and seeps again while moments blow away from us turning the rose dawn into lavender moon, March into September.

Best swaddle our babies in veery song suspended on a breeze. Light meets day in its bud, gently uncoil each hour. They expect warm milk and kisses, we savor their sweet perfume. Find children as fresh earth, as body of amber clay. Layer on layer, by moments etched, we mold them home. Best swaddle our babies with apricot sunrises that open into May. The feast is not in the kettle when elbows dimple the cloth; only picnics of stories so satisfy like desert rain. They expect dragons swarming the castle, we savor paper cranes. Decades unfold a family like an aspen clone claims its slope - pushed open with birth and marriage, deepened in woe. Best swaddle our babies in butterflies laced in lucky saffron. Waking hours hold the key to Darwin explorations; we’ll set their brilliant minds free, feathering daydreams with angels. They expect to track a creek forever, we savor safe returns. Raising children pours like sand for a painting, every grain counts; they’re not ours, they belong to the w...

Why bury your wildness? Honor that rakish salvation from soap and Jane Austin. It’s neither silk purse nor sow's ear. Why bother with some chase across Mongol steppes? Tunnel worm holes into a ninth dimension later. For now study your own notions of life and duty - how easily they fill with dust like puddles in August. When you neglect the beveled lips of crystal framing you with feral kin, your light bends obliquely from this nebulous sky. When you giggle madly as a pod of girls in skirts scarlet and billowing, veils swing apart. Holding patience like April holds spring, this good earth desires your seed and feathered song; desires timid fingers to probe iron laced fissures that map your fault line. Follow the dark thread home; nose to wind, chase sanguine urges. Crave the Golden Salmon roasting on hot coals. The best morsels wait for your hungry tongue. It sings to your wildness. Don’t bury her again.

“Argentines have watched, horrified, as the meltdown dissolved more than their pocketbooks. Even the rich have been affected in their own way. The tragedy has struck hardest, however, among the middle class, the urban poor and the dirt farmers. Their parts of this once-proud society appear to have collapsed -- a cave-in so complete as to leave Argentines inhabiting a barely recognizable landscape.” – Washington Post , August 6, 2002 Morning climbs up the sleek skin of skyscrapers. Morning climbs up the sleek skin of skyscrapers. Our broken bourgeois dines on cracked china. Our broken bourgeois dines on cracked china. Sleek china dines on the cracked bourgeois. Broken of skyscrapers, morning climbs up our skin Proud Argentina sleeps with a growling belly. Proud Argentina sleeps with a growling belly. There is food on the freeway and it’s still alive. There is food on the freeway and it’s still alive. It’s a proud freeway still growling with food. Argentina is there alive and the b...

Don’t bury your wilderness! Honor that rakish salvation from soap and Jane Austin; it’s neither silk purse nor sow's ear. Don’t bother with the chase, down stone steps all the way to Mongolia; forget tunneling with worm holes into a ninth dimension. Instead, remember how slyly your own reflection fills with cobwebs like puddles in August if you neglect the beveled lips of crystal between you and this feral kin. Bend your light as obliquely as a sky is full of quasars, giggle madly as a herd of girls in skirts scarlet and billowing. Don't bother with the chase, your savanna patiently waits. Find the nerve instead to trace the iron laced fissure, defining your own fault line. Find the nerve to huddle like Persephone beside Hades; embrace your Jerusalem. It shelters an Irish salmon, you'll roast on hot coals. Feed its best morsels to your yeti; and don’t bury it again!

“Well, I made you take time to look at what I saw…” – Georgia O’Keeffe 1954 she paints the canvas Winter Cottonwoods East V. Burnt umber and raw sienna render limbs to transcend all sense of sleeping sap. Within her smudged pigment, out of wintry light emerges an odd alchemy. Countless living stems press into thin air in a maze of wands. Even leafless, slow and steady respirations stitch tree with sky in secret marriage. 2004 she is the canvas Winter Cottonwoods East V. I draw in burnt umber and raw sienna to assuage my melancholy since leaving olive tammies1 and silver sage. I make a pact to swap mirror for trees naked now beside my bed. This morning five purple finches pried open black hulls, plainly melding bird and flower budding in song.

“Well, I made you take time to look at what I saw…” – Georgia O’Keeffe 1954 - she paints canvas I test young legs later we intersect at Winter Cottonwoods East V where a simple landscape of burnt umber raw sienna mars brown belies my assumption for sleeping sap absorbs me in fresh wintry light more in smudged paint than fine line she imparts a deep alchemy between tree and sky each broad stem tapers to blur like fabric frayed in steady wind each breath trades sky for tree desert canyons send me home full of sage and tammies edges smudged by steady diet of wild water strong light her trees replace my mirror - I am winter cottonwoods finding old folds like new roots in granite 2004 -I rest tired legs she is canvas we meet at the edges swap moments as maiden – mother - crone breathe in burnt umber raw sienna mars brown trust a naked alchemy my mirror- her trees

You felt it as your heels sank slowly into gummy grains rimming a finely sorted shoreline; from sandy lips fluted like crinoline skirts you felt siren song tucked away among gritty runes. Good time to get up and walk away. This river loves a ruse. Temperamental bards require a lazy audience. So you slow down long enough to watch alluvium drop – down three inches to rusty sand six inches to fine mud two inches to silt outlining nine coon tracks. You sit satisfied, thinking blessed are the patient, and the river leads you on. You feel a rhythm, it hooks your braided logic. Good time to get up and walk away, good time to seek a Heisenburg translation for river speak – he’d say it’s never here – never now always here – always now. You could take an hour to mouth one syllable, you could love mud in your teeth; but a river hoards its lore for locals - heron and chub. River tongues sing beyond us, so you must slide ...

She is home in Tennessee Little Lila Raine Pretty as a willow tree Little Lila Raine Caterpillar on the floor Little Lila Raine Sunshine dances in your door Little Lila Raine Oh, little Lila Little Lila Raine Oh, little Lila Little Lila Raine You’re my little sugar bean Little Lila Raine Lucky clover on the green Little Lila Raine Tell me what you did today Little Lila Raine Skip and sing and laugh and play Little Lila Raine Oh, little Lila Little Lila Raine Oh, little Lila Little Lila Raine Black cat purrs beside the fire Little Lila Raine Red squirrel runs across the wire Little Lila Raine When the moon drops off to bed Little Lila Raine Put a rosebud by his head Little Lila Raine Oh Little Lila Little Lila Raine Oh, little Lila Little Lila Raine Tiny mermaid loves to dream Little Lila Raine Splashing down a lazy stream Little Lila Raine Kiss your mama, hug your pa Little Lila Raine Crows in the tree, go caw - caw Little Lila Raine Oh, little Lila, Little...

He loves the chair that groans, loves its quaky threats to fail; loves to settle at five thirty onto its cracked leather cushion that sags from steady affection - joints rickshaw shaky, legs chestnut strong. “One day,” he thinks, “gorilla glue to the rescue.” The chair is a lifeboat. It has carried more than backsides. It’s held whole vituperative lumps, huffing and mottled, waving fists like distant lines on the Serengeti. He loves stories about species saved; smug on his faithful quay beside unsympathetic seas, he watches for their note in a bottle. The chair is an eddy - it swirls dread like fetid foam, clings to the bitter edge of sweet. The chair is a nest – sticks and skins wound over centuries, middened with sweat and worry, securing his kin, night after night since Lascaux. The chair is tired too, it moans for empty moments, prays for just reward, threatens to give in - seeks rescue from gorilla’s glue.

Teach me half the gladness That thy brain must know - Percy B. Shelley   Valentine thunder shakes logs, wakes frogs; they rise to rim a brimming pond. Be aroused, bellow the teeny beasties; there’s tadpoles to make before dawn. Crickets appear, their imperative clear rub legs, lay eggs, avoid birdies. Wood thrush returns from Panama jungles, odyssey skims the canopies. Song soaks the air in sponges around them; finding lungs in belly and skin. When green tides surge across umber fields, June arrives awash in new kin.

As a bone crescent drops into dusk bandy leg peepers climb with the sap and jet streams thread light with thunder. Be aroused, bellow the beasties, in serenades whooshing like waves as a bone crescent drops into dusk. Owls and bugs swell the ruckus, weaving their cacophony into night’s cloth and jet streams thread light with thunder. In bedlam so blatant, this spring tonic wheedles even the woodcock to cheep as a bone crescent drops into dusk. Sound soaks the air, and we must inhale with ears, belly, skin - must exhale in jet streams threading light with thunder. Now a green tide carries us to May, breaks over June awash in new fruit, out of crescents dropping into dusk and dreams threading light with thunder.

Be as water quicksilver thin magic carpet pioneer dispersing up, up and away Be as water crystal lattice intertwined elbow to elbow willow now basket, now boat Be as water brimming edge courageous surrender five hundred feet headlong in full song

Stack your babies tightly; it allays their fears about the corduroy road ahead. Bumps are certain, so be adamant about how you uncoil the hour. They expect warm moons rimmed in walnuts, you know the day is more serpentine. The duty of family is to handle life like a vintage harvest; days brim with opportunity often missed, but always kindled – keep the coal alive. Stack your babies tightly; it allays their fears about the corduroy road ahead. The bounty of brave parents, what fills sparse blue nights, and brightens pinched faces is the picnic of stories after a lean meal. How papa unfolds each mind behind blue eyes. They expect warm moons rimmed in walnuts, he knows the day is more serpentine. If only we had centuries to grow a family, like the Oregon Coast; trusting the liquid space between strong siblings, and danger just a splashing surf. Stack your babies tightly; it allays their fears about the corduroy road ahead. But the sky in not a tin roof and fog lets in the rai...

He loves the chair that groans, loves how it carps like a fishwife. At five thirty he settles onto its cracked leather pad, sagging from family abundance; every joint rickshaw shaky still holds legs hickory strong. One day, he thinks, gorilla glue to the rescue; shore up this damn thing. The chair, a relic of family opinion, has cradled more than bottoms and legs. It’s throned vituperative lumps red faced and hissing at Murrow reporting tanks in Warsaw, at Cronkite questioning the TET, at Mandela’s climb to president. Wonders why blood in Haditha matters. This chair is tired. It creaks because it's full and worn. Patina coats its bony arms, oiled mocha with worry, hands bearing up under the news. It knows what complains hangs around – sturdy as a dirge. What complains settles deeper like the bitter edge of sweet. It creaks to remind him - even the sturdiest welcome empty moments when thoughts settle like dust; when silence rescues frantic frays to fix the world. And it creak...

Each morning I meet my crazy quilt bright eyed, in from the edge, spectacular as Easter’s ilk eggs tuck in ditch and hedge . What’s so crazy about a mantle pieced from robe and shirt, summer culotte, tartan flannel destined for the dirt. Each day a junta erects regimes Of arms and legs and balls Time is bottled, black deals are sealed, piked heads fill the halls. What’s best about hegemony; when sovereigns step aside? Begets a tidge of larceny and mayhem for its a bride.

"Think of chaos as dancing raspberries." - Judyth Hill from " Wage Peace " I. How the morning meets us matters. A crazy quilt met mine. I woke with a pigeon’s view of Easter processing down Peachtree. What’s so crazy about a blanket? Pieced like family jewels from denim jacket, brocade skirt - my clan spread eagle. II. Truth is - juntas stalk regimes with kudzu enterprise. They’d freeze time to collect enough arms, legs and testicles. What’s amiss with coup d’état? Glorious in stealth, they bring justice home by its scruff, savor the spoils like Hampshire boars. III. Luck finds the writer who consummates work with good whiskey. Good and bad saturated Thomas. Catlin's fire matched his muse. Nothing kindles like lust and duty to goddess and queen - purple robe lifted by salt wind, her ruddy fuse goading the tide.

I would trade for a better dessert, Trade it in for the white skirted waitress. Her chocolate and cream holds its own allure So does thirty three footsteps When there are bullies in the play ground. Give me a hop for good measure. Instead of snapping gum in this cold depression Between Sir Hillary’s expedition and the cold comfort Of sliding home alive, I could be still as a pond Crouching under a roof of stalactites, Dodging the icy daggers that pin me to my word. Summer rain comes so seldom, especially now Under the January skies of the northern hemisphere. My unwashed hair chides me to trade it for a better season Trade it in for apple blossoms and hummingbirds and wilted lettuce salads. But these icy daggers have their own allure, They hide me from the bullies – across the playground now chasing the scent of some other prey. I’ll give it a hop for good measure.

Every morning my crazy quilt meets me bright eyed, in from the edge. I might as well have a pigeon’s view of Easter processing down Peachtree. Tell me what’s crazy about a blanket so carefully pieced from robe and jumper, summer blouse and kitchen curtains. It’s my Ursula Clan spread eagle in slatted sun, stitched together with more than thread. Every day a junta pieces together its regime arms and legs bound in testicles. It bottles time – cramming clock into calendar. Even in sleep it’s abuzz with jolts of blood bullied by heart and lung; abuzz in kudzu dreams. Tell them what’s crazy about conquest; tell them even the tightest stitches loosen, even the best fabrics fray. When water and sun exact their tithe, everything red fades to green. The force that drives that fuse drives the Fundy tide; drives Thomas to down 18 shots of whiskey, drives Caitlin to hedge her bets that he’d ever make her happy, drives her albatross view of the corduroy sea between Wales & Milk Wood. Tell her w...