Half-dozen Mud cakes

Back to wood

decks, quarter-size spiders, webs, moss 

and creatures stirring in the hollow

nights

Back to no

side-walks and skirting into the duff

or mud when cars and trucks pass

close-by

Back to walking

in the woods, again, sheltered 

from the horizon and its deep-wide

glistening

Ends of days

In so many ways

I thought I would 

Never

Be back

It all seems

to stay the same

Except I

Must leave again...

And then again

If I never left

I would never be

Back. 

Painting by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, 'Combing' c. 1891 in Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Home

This name does not belong

to me-

This body will do

For mobility of the restless soul

Escape from all

This

killing ourselves

Sweet poisons of security

in a sense

Never enough

To fill the seams

To fit to the letter

To tie loose ends

Try to forget

Let go

without remembering

What it was

The name of something

That kept us.

Painting by 'Winslow Homer, 'The Green Hill' c. 1878, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons in Public Domain. 

Aloha

Everybody's Home

Burns to the ground

At some point

The scenery changes

Like that

Old memory of

Open fields

Filled in with

Buildings

Now 

Vacant and

Antiquated after

Remote working

Everybody's Home. 

Painting by Jules Tavernier, 'Kilauea Caldera Sandwich Islands' c. 1886 at San Diego Art Museum in Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Sure lines

With these borrowed

hands, I preen and I prod, poking

this vessel,

taking exploratory measure-

ments

only I can comfortably make.

They do not fit-

together.

Fingers, tendrils, palms, 

veins; grasping, touching

or holding.

Yet I know I need them

as is.

This is why I collect the seashells

at the shoreline,

we may never fit in

as beautifully

as when we are ejected

from the abyss 

we thought we knew

as Home. 

Painting by John Morgan (1823-1885), 'A girl with a seashell' in Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Another Autumn Awaits

 

Falling comes naturally

as common as fear 

another body

knocked down-

Learning how to climb

up to the canopy 

out of the arbor awnings

each branch a rung

bell 

a ladder 

has no top

The horizon awaits this distant gaze

further than 

a crow flies 

an escape 

too far to grasp, too afraid to take

it all in

to begin again

asking...

What is more

No-

body needs to learn

anything except 

landing 

softly

before rising again

with an icy wind

at knifepoint

only to return 

home, rootbound

thirsting 

for more.

Artwork by Ellen Thayer Fisher, 'Fall leaves and Acrons' c. 1885 in Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

On the cusp

Setting one's sails
toward a life
and geography

we have long sought
becomes legacy

Maybe on Mondays
the horizon is too far away
to project any other color
but grey.

Anchoring ourselves
against the skylight
to the hours of shrinking shadows
where we are finding
bending light
a production
there was stillness to be
stolen, every now and then
dangling

the arc of our residence
may only be seen from great distances

and the greatest home
feels like there is nowhere else
to go.




Painting by Elioth Gruner, 'Fristy Sunrise', c. 1917 [Public domain].

The beaten path

The road is much traveled
and many speculations remain
about the roads not taken.

We have all come upon ourselves
confused, at the apex of options-
(a) or (to) be decisive upon catching the
flicker of a tall Indian paintbrush leaning
like an arrow as a sign to be read,
This Way-a choice is made for us.

We were exploring the Sierra ranges
and wound our way wordlessly
worshiping the execution of a task as
simple as footfalls when sinking into
shade, the unmistakable turbine of water
argued with the rocks somewhere nearby.

And as if made of honey,
we were drawn to the source.
Two humans length
off the path and we became
the main course. Each of us
quickly encased in a thick cloud
of blood-sucking bugs.

We persisted
and swatted and swung
at each other. For why we knew not.
We had seen running water before,
as rivers lead to other rivers before
spilling onto
the same old sandy shores.

Well, we nearly made it.
When the bough broke
the snap of our attention,
like a fishing line, hooked our cheek
on a fallen boulder of brown, a mound
facing its reflection as though right
at home.

The brown bear beat us there.




Painting by Albert Bierstadt, 'Passing storm over the Sierra's' c. 1870 in [Public domain].

By a heir

On a full moon night
near the solstice,
there was no gentle way
to be honest
under the naturally blue light.

I have long said,
everything travels in waves,
like this; light, sound, heat, idea,
emotion, news and aromas.

It made me angry
to remember
standing there.
He said I should do it,
for the money, for some sense
of justice
I ought to
make an effort,
as if it were worth going
backward.

There is no gold in those hills
waiting for me,
He disagrees.

For now, I tell him
I am still too busy.
And he knows how cold it is already
and knows it is too cruel to drop more
on me.

I reminisce how
many moons ago
I dreamt myself right here,
and never needed to remember
how it all happened.

Honestly, there is nothing left there
of value
for me.
I know I will have to go
back there, as the only child, the only one
who will-
It will cost them
only a little peace
when all has been
said and nothing done.

You left part of you
exposed there and turning blue
waiting for you to finally go back
and bury the body
deep in the hills
like treasures of the past.

We finally agreed,
a wave of relief washed over us both
Not Now-
in due time
it will come needing me
and my cold-hearted honesty
in the full moonlight.



Painting by Ilya Repin [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Point A

Home is where we start from,
Eliot said,
while one is busy making plans,
planted Lennon trees,
as though making a home and getting somewhere,
were lasting-
things are all ending around you.

It is not as if Paradise was the same as Innocence
and yes,
both disappeared,
were sheared from necessity
like baby teeth and training wheels,
and how it hurts worse
when home
and are overfed.

Home is a net,
or a web.

He picks up the guitar again and gives it
another chance
this time, she says, until
his fingers bleed.

The other one drives herself away
and is made stronger
so far
from home,
her hopes await.

They both grow from the 'here'
they call Home,
while I make myself busy
tuning the strings
to help them hear, or find
harmony in their spheres
and recognize the crystalized tone
of their own spin,
at least phonetically
one Here's
it to be, pronounced
Home or Ohm.

Raised from nothing but ashes.


Photo By Paik, Kenneth, 1940-2006, Photographer (NARA record: 8464462) (U.S. National Archives and Records Administration) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Caught in a (w)rec(k)tangle

When the house becomes too small to move-

Say-the mind a sliver, the air stagnates,

Move, make ninety degrees and push

yourself in the corner as close as you can

                                                    and wait,

settle eventually

                                      into splitting sides.

The edges are solid suggestions.

Only like (a)new angle,                thirty-three

vertebrae stacked spines of letters in cantos

                        Will line up to form new rays,

circular thoughts that roll off to escape

                                                       -common

nodes or intersects by a(n)arrow marginality.

Letterally, let us build this thing out

with meaning and not caulk it up impermeable

Around the double pane windows

Only to trap commas in between

Breath and rain

Between escape and containment

We will just

stay in place and listen

Accepting the sentence

as the last line

Insight. May be make more

empty dwelling spaces

To call a place

None like Home. 


Painting by Michiel Sweerts [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Habitat

At first,

I was discriminatory about it;

ripping out only the ground

cover and displaced Kentucky Bluegrass,

careful not to yank the horsetails.

Yet the rake only brushed these down-

these (knot supposed to grow there)

“weeds”.

Well, it may have been irrational, 

but I

grabbed the hoe

and took heaving jabs 

at just the top layers.

This explains the piles of dirt

just outside the front door.

Besides
all the beetles and spiders,

webs and trash, a penny here, some tinsel there,

a brake light piece, first impressions 

and never agains, all elements were there

for a dirty job.

Then,

I went in the very back
at the base of the green wall.

The bamboo reeds sway brezzily,
tall tips tangled within the canopy of

avocado trees-whose roots really reside
next door,

these dying spears bow down
over the pergola top,

stiff brown leaves like old fingers play

the poled roof as the xylophone,

and to those-
I take the “loppers”.

The green waste bin overflows before nine am.

Saturday,

an April in Spring.

The house still in sleep, the birds pass

playing with airwaves, lilting songs and

dramatic swooping screams, 

while I sweat, arch back

my back in the strong early sun
bearing down over my shoulder.

This dirty yellow hair
clings matted to my clenched jaw.

When he wakes, he says,
it was from my earth moving-

then looks around at the vast 

open spaces, an overhaul, my latest work-

a blending of dirt brown and sky blue,

I offer him a toothless smile, and some
black coffee wearily.

Admiring the pruning skills of an elephant,

he offers-“Couldn’t write?”

“I think I will go back to sweeping

the driveway,” I say.

Painting by János Thorma (1920) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Hand me downs (II)

The local train blares by

to cause alarm

although familiar, futility gains strength with steam.

With this new engineer at the helm from the rear

he calls *Attention* to his pressures and passages

as though he

the town crier knew the time

anymore.

This whine is the bell vibrating raw gravity-

                           hard to see

coming straight, near, far, coming, going...

All the rest is color coded for us,

              lights and trigger switches

are on the outside, green and red, black and blue

Stop and Go for Simons followers.

The straight path, as the crow flies,

is soft and well worn, even in the sky

                     drawing diameters

in his radii, he is right on a smooth track.

To make it back home for dinner, meatloaf.

To rely on regular things such as

weak forces, sympathy and cacophonies.

Painting by Frits Thaulow, The train is arriving (1881) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

The mana of the fauna

Gaia is my locale,
Terra is my terrain
Inside this
aqueous bubble
flora flourishes
thick and suspended amid
the primordial brew.
This is my realm-
while I am at the helm
I am in my house,
an island broken free.
The sky is not too far away,
a ceiling just out of reach.
On the tip of my fingers,
on the tip of my tongue
I taste the expression
Home sweet Home
and am parched
waiting by the door.




Image By en:Gerard van Schagen [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. World map c. 1689.

A city called Home

If I were blind the first question would be
Where,
then Am I?
If I were to listen I could not tell our places
apart
Your city sounds no different than my home.

When I close my eyes
                to turn up the volume,
when I strain to listen in
               the sounds become deafening.

I can hear your train
               passing through.
I can hear the rushing waters,
through my fountain
                or your pipes.
I can hear conversations
                not for me,
laughter, underlapping rise and
fall
of voice-
a plane passes also
                not for me.

I can smell the cafes, the local fare,
I can smell the clothes and bodies,
I can smell the trash and perfume spent
for no good reason.

The pots and pans,
footsteps, traffic, coming and goings
of whims from my window
it tastes exhilarating.

Smiles, and dings, rings,
jewels, tones, excuse me's
and gotta go's
seem exhausting.

Everything
I could ever need,
under one roof,
safely knowing each footstep
                      to the door, down the hall
                      to get the mail
                      to get back inside
                      (where I hide)
called my place,
or your City
Where
        I am right at home
taking in
the blind view.