Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
See also my Woodrat photoblog and my Flickr account.
a chaos of paths
stops me in my tracks
tumbleweed AKA windwitch
stuck in the icy crust
while moss and lichen
nearby are melting free
touseled but upright
with gray cups upraised
a crushed plastic water bottle
rests like a saint in its icy crypt
the ground shakes
from a coal train
one piece of passing graffiti says
in gothic letters GET OUT
crown shyness as they call it
saves the trees
from foreign entanglements
as shrinkwrapped
in ice they glitter
and shed dead limbs
now in my woodstove
a tongue of flame makes
a knot explode
smoke from my chimney
sinks to the ground
and ghosts off into the forest
where i soon follow
over the ice
with chains on my feet
seeking patches of snow
left behind by the wind
for news of spring
chipmunk forays
out of hibernation
the braided tracks of coyotes
bright green
scraps of moss
dug up by a squirrel
what snow reveals
in hiding the ground
is no less than the lay of the land
under her fur of bare trees
the curves become clear
their geologic easier to follow
plain as a line of tracks
snow’s other revelation
how the land does in fact
belong to many others
who happen to keep
largely to themselves
as witnessed by hoarfrost
forming at the mouth of a burrow
from some deep breather
in a dreamless den
or the snow angel left
by an owl’s midnight raid
the splay of featherprints
a few drops of blood
disappearing in a squall
the snow showing its truest face
and when it stops
the air smells cleaner
a junco pours out his song
beside the spring
its dark water a refuge
from all this seeing
wolf down a dog’s
breakfast of hype
cry in unison
use every lost key
feed the feedback
pierce some eardrums
that’s how unutterable
this wolf is
hold haters in contempt
be holocaustic
inspire fear
freeze in the headlights
disbelieve that anyone might choose
the actual wolf
i follow my mother’s tracks
following a porcupine
where it dragged a tree-
filled belly over
the snow striped with shadows
like the sky striped with clouds
the black-and-white
of woodpecker wings
on the horizon the other
end of this very mountain
curled like a blue cat
in the January sun
whither the snows of yesteryear
if not in this very weather
stand under a conifer’s fur
and begin to understand
absence prickling in the nose
no good or bad scents
furrows drift over as if
the storm were a harrow
aches forgotten i’m agog
at snow falling through oaks
inevitable snowflakes in my tea
taste of the ineffable
snow falls in the darkness
drops like the latest style
it’s the night’s whitest isle
till the wind picks up and it all goes
sideways like Marilyn Monroe’s
irrepressible dress
You can be anything now, I whisper to the corpse — an approximate truth in the approved manner of motivational speeches. Outside, the obnoxious brightness continues, unmitigated by any warmth, pouring through the naked oaks and birches. The news comes on, replacing the golden oldies with dispatches from a world where unlimited growth is possible, and a violent dying empire can only be a force for good. Grandmother sighs and settles deeper into her mystery.
November sun –
an owl-shaped shadow
opening its eyes
insomnia is a well
as bright as an October moon
i lower my bucket
it comes back with ground fog
day breaks
over eyelashed horizons
the sleep i didn’t get leads me
on through the morning
like the proverbial donkey
following a dangled stone
day passes in the long
intervals between blinks
fallen leaves curled like fetuses
soon bury my tracks