Tarot Question
Shall I stay?
Shall I go?
Which will make
The spirit flow?
Do Graveyard’s skull
And bones disguise
God’s holy light
In bleary eyes?
If I remain
By my free will
Will Spring transform
This Wintry Mill?
Tester’s Testament
This is the last time that I’ll sit
Slowly leafing through this log
Searching for a contact’s spark
To pierce my boredom’s lonely fog.
There’s hours when working in the mill
Seems like punishment for crime.
You’ve got a home and family
For that you’ve got to do your time.
It takes the strength of a serious man
To work on shift both day and night.
There’s character and dignity
In holding a job and doing it right.
But my time’s up, my Winter’s passed.
Though I hate to leave that steady pay
Spring’s lecherous tickling in my blood
Wont let me stay another day.
I take with me just a little money
But maybe more important still
I take a feeling of comradeship
With the men who remain and work at the Mill.
There isn’t much I can leave behind
As a legacy to share–
Just some contacts for a spark
To light the long nights in this chair.
In the mirror
I see me.
How can the subject
Object be?
1.
Midpoint of our years
Summer Solstice nears
Mothers giving birth
Sanctifying earth.
2.
Dawn and Dusk converge
In the sun’s ovoidal path.
Opium days
Like poppy buds engorged,
Violet velvet vulvae
Swell, slit, split, splash out
Orange-red radiance
Petals, pistils, stamens
Fingers, toes.
Voice of the sea
Whisper to me
Over and over and over.
Wave upon wave
Washing my cave
Clean and pure and free.
Hey, let’s go down to Chinatown
And get a bit of Lichee
You say that you’re allergic
And it makes your elbows itchy?
Well, that’s no serious problem
I know just what you should do:
Mash ginger root with ginseng root
And get a sticky goo
Mix it up with some rice vermicelli
That you’ve dipped in a little grass Jelly
Then rub it gently around on your belly
And wipe it off when it starts to go smelly.
Do this and your elbows will never get itchy
Though you’ve eaten your fill of delitchious lichee.
(Written for the Lund Theatre Troupe’s Production of Free to Be You and Me)
Love is whatever you make it
Just like the song that I sing
A cage or a perfect circle
This golden wedding ring.
We made a vow in a garden
Twelve years ago today
To build our lives in common
To link arms on our way.
Now look back on that moment
Where once the seal was set
And see our path returning
To the place where we first met.
We’ve lived in the big bad city
We’ve moved out on the land
But location no longer matters
It’s where we are we stand.
We blasted through the sixties
A searchin’ to be free
Came down to earth in the seventies
Accepting the limits of “me.”
And everything we wanted
And everything we tried
Has come and gone in the rushing stream
Has flourished and withered and died.
Except for one thing only
That stands against the flow
That time, instead of eroding,
Has strengthened and helped to grow.
And that’s what always is April
The moment under the tree
The love that we make together
The source of our family.
Palo Alto, April 2 1980
*
The trees are there
when talking stops.
They wait
for the runner.
*
At the track
before dawn
no sound
beyond breathing
but the freeway.
Exhaust
tires
and scares the runner; he stops
and notices the green-wattle tree
survives.
It softens the noise,
it freshens his blood.
*
Pursuing a youth
made lovelier yet by flight
through woods he runs
unloved,
imploring recognition.
Outdistanced and breathless
she prays for escape
then stands.
Her heart still beats against his touch
as bark encloses the soft breast,
arms twist into branches
hair flattens to leaves,
and swift feet root underground.
They are crowned
with laurel.
*
Last night’s storm
cleaned the branches
but left a mess
of yellow liquidambar leaves
on the wet, black pavement.
The runner’s eye arranges them
in passing.
*
The trees help the runner
reach his goal.
For his motion
they exchange stillness.
*
On American Airlines flight 510 to Kent Ohio
For two days I’ve been shopping and packing, provisioning for this expedition: 10 copies of a résumé, my article in progress, financial statement on Laurel tree care, family picture, three piece suit, hiking boots, dissertation, Index cards. My excitement has intensified since the Monday night phone message from the Davey Tree Company which said “we want you to come spend a week at corporate headquarters in Ohio as soon as possible.” Rescue and opportunity!
I sought out this company and this field of work both out of desperation and hope. The academic career I qualified for had dead ended again while working with trees is “a path with heart.” Since the termination of Jan’s job as Dean at Scripps College, the support of the family shifts to me. She needs the kind of space she has provided me, and someone must supply the family with peanut butter and running shoes. (more…)