One day and inches from this world
A presence greater
Than all things real
Yet tentative, unknown.
Boy or girl
Will it survive the passage?

Swelling incertitude burst
By the ringing phone
And grandmother’s cry:
“He’s here, born 8:05
Abel Henry Marx.”

Expired questions
Your life the answer
And to what new questions
Now that waiting is over?

August 23 2006

Fossils in rock
Footprints in sand
Paths in a chamber of cloud.

Wasting desire in rare and fleeting joy
Infinite promise unfulfilled
Brought despair in youth

Now age astonished with store
And pleasure daily reached
Exults in limitation

Awakening in darkness
I’m welcomed by the night
To a resplendent roofless hall
Too grand for my poor sight.

The handle of the dipper
Goes swiveling overhead
A warm wind gusts across my face
And grasses sweep my bed.

The silence of the valley
Breaks with a coyote’s sound
That’s followed by responses
From all the hills around.

The stars look down from heaven
The owl gives a hoot
The earth supports my body
My pillow is my boot.

###

(originally appeared in Cal Poly Land: A Field Guide, sketch by Anna Chaffin)

John Milton, Paradise Lost: 7: 309-338 [copied and imitated from Genesis 1-2]

Let th’ Earth
Put forth the verdant Grass, Herb yeilding Seed,
And Fruit Tree yeilding Fruit after her kind;
Whose Seed is in her self upon the Earth.
He scarce had said, when the bare Earth, till then
Desert and bare, unsightly, unadorn’d,
Brought forth the tender Grass, whose verdure clad
Her Universal Face with pleasant green,
Then Herbs of every leaf, that sudden flour’d
Op’ning thir various colours, and made gay
Her bosom smelling sweet: and these scarce blown,
Forth flourish’t thick the clustring Vine, forth crept
The swelling Gourd, up stood the cornie Reed
Embattell’d in her field: add the humble Shrub,
And Bush with frizl’d hair implicit: last
Rose as in Dance the stately Trees, and spred
Thir branches hung with copious Fruit; or gemm’d
Thir Blossoms: with high Woods the Hills were crownd,
With tufts the vallies & each fountain side,
With borders long the Rivers.

Steven Marx, “April the First”

The Spring god talked the green world into being.
She said to earth, “Push up the verdant grasses
And all the vegetation bearing seed
The fruit trees yielding their own distinct fruits
To hold and spread the seeds of progeny.”
And earth no sooner heard, still bleak and bare,
But that her crust burst forth with tender Grass
That softened to a face of smiling green,
And then with broad-leafed herbs that sudden bloomed
To dress her breast in luscious colored flowers
And fragrance sweet. And still more growth,
The lengthy vines emerged and soon grew thick
Swelling with squash and pumpkin. Ranks of grain
Sprang up in fields and shrubby chapparel
Sprouted impen’trable thickets. Climaxing
Above this growth, majestic trees rose up
Reached out their overarching limbs adroop
With fruits and flowers, and crowned in groves
The hills, gave shade to springs riparian,
And bordered watercourses.

Gently wafting Knoll House breeze
Stirs the firs and arbutus trees
That frame the watery passage I see
Between the mainland and Savary
From the deck six hundred feet up
Where a fritillary flits by my coffee cup.

Speedboats enter from each side
Gash parallel lines before they hide
Behind green curtains lost from view
Their white paths fading back to blue.
Horizon clouds disperse to show
The glacial glare off Forbidden Plateau.

A loud leaf scrapes the greying shakes
Above soft sounds that birdsong makes.
The sun radiates my soles with heat
And puffs of wind aircool my feet.
Whiffs of fragrance richly vary
Shalal, peat, and huckleberry.

Writing makes my observation
Slow motion, line’s permutation.
Dancing fingers lead the pen
Across the empty pages, then
Leave a snail-paced slimey trail
Wormy castings endless tale.

Broken off by–of all things–
Yellow belly-throat, black wings
Crimson crown–an Oriole
Visiting this blessed Knoll.

August 1998

The golden rings you’ve just exchanged and wear
As binding links of interlocking vow
Made with free choice impalpable as air
Enclose the undetermined future now.
The two of you together cleave as one
To fill the gap between the worlds in space
Between the pleasure and what should be done
Between the gruesome times and times of grace.
You leave behind the families of your birth
To recreate the world as best you can
With children, home and projects of true worth
The newly chartered firm of Chris and Ann.
May it prosper through what fortune brings
As have these redwood sempervirens rings.

I cant remember quite when
I decided to dress and go out
Not feeling ready or strong
Just bored enough for the risk.

It must have been the moment
Some furious battle tilted
Between invaders and guards
Endurance turning to hope.

I made it around the block
Slow as old folks in the park
Who step to keep from falling
And stop to catch their breath

To sense movement and rest
A breeze stroking the lips
To squint at fluttering leaves
And the radiant blue of air

Like a kid on shaky legs
Licked, sponging up life.
Recovery is a miracle,
But father will you arise?

October 31 1996