3x5 #2


Going
in February --
on a day as good as any --
Like my neighbor's horse neither content nor resigned.

Wires that never meet sing a cold torch song
the eagle whose field this is sits silhouetted on frozen lightening, 
black against white sky.

Wind late arriving
shifts sage shadows that define the sun
field mice stare 
Daffodils sleep -- their stone
not yet rolled away.
.

   

Avalanche Lilies

Avalanche Lilies

At breakfast, Earth aimlessly sloshes milk against

the ocean’s rim, inundating cities.

When I speak to her  – of suffering and indifference –

she slips from her chair goes outside to play without

a backward glance.  

I pray for permission to be excused.

                                    *

Driving the Yakima Canyon

My finger tip caresses her

hill’s scared brown shoulders

while she sleeps.   

I don’t think my touch will awaken her. 

She’s slept through glaciers on a

Scabland bench.  She doesn’t

Expect or give compassion. 

I love and hate how little she needs me.

Later, I drive by the place where the bank

gave way boulders fell

taking everyone underground.

I look into the bewildered eyes

Of a child searching the sleeve

of his father’s jacket for an

amputated arm.

                                    *

She never forgets, relents,

regrets, repents. But in her

mountain meadows

the snow blind are healed by

Avalanche Lilies

LFM

Another Birthday

There’s not enough herbicide in the world

To kill the White Top in my garden.

It must be pulled by hand, by the roots

Like an infection, a bad habit, a baby.

Even then where water falls

it reseeds.  So recede yourself

If you’re thinking to restrain the birth of things

growing since before you.

    

Lazy Boy doesn’t make a birthing stool.

Slender, handsome, hand-honed as a child.

Though beautifully designed, not

the wood one would expect to find in

front halls, near a table, or a mirror

as if a body might stop off there  

lean back and be relieved of eight or ten

pounds extra before

skipping up stairs.

In time it becomes

a backroom altar

parental petitions light the candles.

it’s curve fits confession nicely.

Still, every life’s a new life

No one’s registered a retread

Even the reincarnated.

I am glad life is tenacious

and that you, sprouting

when you did, seeded

surprises in my space

to illuminate a late season. 

LFM

Cleaning

I wander about

washing machines,

wondering

at the ethics of

toploaders –

their trickle down economy

so dependent upon bottom up

agitation,

the morality

of bleach silencing

the accusations

whistleblowing

hampers make.

Will it be the dog fur’s

breeze knitted net,

hid behind the

firewall of the washer’s

leveling foot,

that’ll fill my

horizon,

when this head hits the

floor?

I don’t think they’ll need

their white

gloves then.

Uncoupling

uncoupled 
boxcar on
cheat grass siding

memory rolled
into rust's
ravine
 

tended
this grave
long enough

exhumed
expatriate of
bones

dance in the arms of
any wind
who’ll have you

For Paul and Silas

Two sea birds
walked
where wings became
a liability.

They sensed the storm
pressing
heads
into a toilet

blotched cheeks
eyes sunk deep as
an arched
doorway

the Moon -- pale
night nurse --
observed reported
impotent to intervene
.
the Sun tortured the sheets
but could not ring
from them admissible
confessions

Who sounded the alarm?
Who pounded on doors?
Who carried the invisible
purse of Silence?

Love stole them blind.
With no reason for locking
or unlocking doors
they flew away.

Where do gulls go to
ride out a hurricane?
Who smooths the linen echo that
the long gray hall rolls out?
LFM

Pointillist

Pointillist  

valleyscape

vermillion

willowed

waters

blue

bird

echos

weathered

Sherpas shouldering

wire

fern green

touseled hayhead

child

brown fleeced

lambs moved

by duty

minute‘s

hand sus-

pended

this

still,this

tired

LFM