The flesh in dreams is as real as it seems. And this is a dream. Bookmark, Page 455, Poems, Notes, and Drawings Portent I heard a sound, turned, and saw my father approaching through the mist. He was smiling, as usual. “Your mother told me to come and get you,” he said, “so here I am. Are you ready?” I told him yes, that I was ready, and that […]
It is the season of tiny spiders, when it’s nearly impossible to pass through the yard without walking into their webs and finding them in my hair and beard. Those I notice, I help out onto a nearby leaf so they can continue about their business. Those I don’t, crawl out later on their own, or I comb them into the bathroom sink. A few days ago, one crawled from […]
The assumption that it’s difficult is what makes it so. But then, so does any assumption at all. You Think You Know Yourself You think you know yourself — then comes a word, a phrase, a night, a moon, an oak in rust on a time-worn hill, leaves, twigs, and cloud-debris, horseless riders faceless until they swing right in front of you — did you dream them or did […]
My first thought this morning: If I slept like a rock, it is a rock that dreams. My second thought: If I slept like an angel, it could mean anything. No Foothold No foothold on the brooding rock, or memory of the climb, only joy in stepping off, and these awkward wings of mine. Recently Banned Literature, August 7, 2014
A peal of thunder so loud and so near, the windows rattle and the house shakes. Or, to put it more succinctly, a skyquake. To happen upon a spring while walking through meadow and wood, and to find strawberries bubbling up from the ground. Or, to put it more succinctly, a mindquake. Suddenly awakening upon the completion of one’s sixty-third trip around the sun, to the voice and touch of […]
Indeed, love bids the earnest question: Can one have truly tasted a fresh, ripe strawberry and still believe in politics and war? The answer is, quite clearly, No. May 17, 2019 Haiku June With my very own eyes — a ripe strawberry picking a little girl. Poems, Slightly Used, June 18, 2009 Rainbow Ring Around the Sun Rainbow ring around the sun rain to come grandson […]
However patiently and faithfully I try to record the quotidian, I find it becomes charged with memory and dream, as if these states of mind or being are infused with a fine mist, like that which heightens the illusion of any natural scene. Set down the most common of items, and it buds and flowers before the sentence ends. Melody Words are living things. Sometimes, through ignorance and arrogance, […]
Is the early-morning tapping of woodpeckers a form of communication? Is it song?
Is the mind’s ear the source of an echo?
And what of the mind’s eye? Is that where we go when we’re gone?
Canvas 1,176 — March 14, 2018
Anonymous
I see you on a swing in a doorway
between two failing timbers,
caught by an echo
in the black night beyond.
Recently Banned Literature, May 23, 2011
I used to have dreams about work not done. I was behind on the farm, I was late, the necessity and importance of the job had completely slipped my mind. An example: suddenly it was April or May, and I realized I had forgotten to prune ten whole acres of vines. Always, or almost always, the dreams culminated in a feeling of guilt and shame. It has been many years […]
There is, for me, the feeling that they have always existed,
and have only been waiting for me to notice.
Their patience is a lesson in itself.
Knowing we may travel a time together,
and that they will likely outlive me, are things I love.
And so, if this is drawing, it’s from a deep, hidden well.
A reservoir of dreams. The fragility of health.
Three for the Road — April 2, 2019
