Inertia
There is something still
to be revealed
years after the dog
lifted its eyes to the treetops—
ten thousand blackbirds raised
a ruckus,
clattering and clacking
before rising as one,
like sudden rainfall.
The trees now quiescent, the dog dead,
fall advances.
Crickets incessantly chirr in tall grass.
I stay, waiting,
to see what might happen.
***
Sacagawea
For the first time
she could not have been happier
had The Way revealed itself
as the way back
to all the days relinquished forever.
Here again were dolomite bluffs
high as clouds above a sheer shroud of mist,
the bend in the river still cool where her heels
dragged against the rude insistence
of the Hidatsa warrior who took her,
a girl barely twelve.
Now a woman, sixteen, she encounters
the place anew, proceeding as then out in front
running, crying,
light leaping from her bare feet breaking
the water, transporting her across
an interval of years to greet
a Lemhi girl and lost companion who escaped,
for all one could see, untouched by capture.
The magnitude of recognition finally
compels the brother Cameahwait, now chief,
to descend from his horse and embrace her,
enacting a reunion deemed afterwards
too implausible for movies.
She never complained, not once, despite bearing a child,
bearing all hardship, even hunger,
becoming eventually reduced to sucking the bitterroot
after consenting to continue with the white discoverers
and that half-husband, Charbonneau,
and the black man, York, through the mountains.
Though desiring to winter in a better place,
she accepted a contrary vote, vociferously objecting only
to say it would be a hard thing
should she not be permitted—after all—to go with the others
to see the great water, to partake of the monstrous fish
waiting to be butchered on that peaceable far shore.
***
Plaint
The swallows have already gone;
seems early this year.
Though these mornings bring fog
in the valley, or settled more generally about,
the sun when it breaks through feels warm as ever.
I mow, watching a soft wind canting
a Monarch butterfly (butterfly!) sideways across a near field
while, their tails languidly flagging,
the dogs dig in the asparagus bed.
Quiet comes early at dark.
Still, I listen to crickets, remembering
the heron’s blue shadow crossing my words
in the morning as it flew across the sun.
Sitting poised at the picnic table, holding pen
to paper, I again muse and wait, ready to observe
all the common, somber allusions,
but my only true thought seems more unoriginal
than unusual.
The world is as it was, and I am happy to be here—
and really, who would prefer anything else?
***
Walking Barefoot Through Dandelions
A galaxy of yellow suns
float as purple afterimages on a field of green—
until I concentrate upon a single bloom
long enough to wonder,
Where are the honeybees of yesteryear?
Two metallic-blue swallows dip and churn
wheeling acrobatically overhead
while tendril clouds revolve ‘round and ‘round
and stars circle unseen.
Like a castaway waiting on an island shore,
I stand on a cool slab of smooth fieldstone
marking a golden dog’s simple grave;
I close my eyes beneath an upraised hand
to see him prancing yet through purple haze, approaching
forever towards me.
***
Where a Poem Explains:
Things Aren’t Always as They Seem
Moon, sun
move in the sky,
the one revealed
nights and days
or concealed, reconciled
with its opposite other.
The near, revered,
reflection
of the other,
indirectly lets us see
hidden perplexity
in plain sight.
What is is real
as well as false:
moon sometimes one,
sun the other.
High noon
or night
the inconstant sphere
becomes mother
to numerous conceits
and one fear;
at times she hides,
at times elides
chance and continuity.
Her every phase
is a shadowy iteration
of a world that glides
inside her; yet
entangled, separate they go
into oblivion,
sliding under a set,
indifferent sun.
***
This Moment
This moment in which I sit quiet with the sun on my back
will never repeat. Though I live a thousand years
the same concurrence of things shall not recur in my life’s time.
The little flies smaller than gnats swirling in a cloud overhead,
the swallows swooping to the water’s mirroring surface,
the bluegills floating motionless in an ageless amber pond
will no doubt recur here in some similar iteration some future day
fine as this one—but none of it will be quite intricately the same as now.
The crickets already are chirring at the onset of fall;
the goldenrod stands at the berm’s dry edge in full bloom;
across the way, the cattail heads have turned all dark velvet brown;
and the world changes again as an unknown fish dimples the still open surface
while a damsel fly hovers, before alighting, weightless as light on a lily;
a pigeon, one of a pair, drinks at the near shore before flying
back to the barn with a whimsical, almost musical whimper.
Still I wait and watch the elderberry transforming its white florets
into green berries and ripe purple fruit, observing as well the cut grass
floating on the tensile top of the water an arm’s reach away.
The dogs lie panting beside me on the grass, on a curved strip of lawn,
enjoying with me this timeless respite before we rise and move on.
***
The White Fields
Morning reveals a confection
of fragile fields. I feel them
crackle underfoot.
Cold seeps
into opening woods, continuing,
continuing,
penetrating the timbers of a relinquished
warm house.
I take off my glasses, and look
at the sky.
***
The End
Thank you for reading
Alas, She Was
She was some lass, lass she was
Until no longer mine,
Some lass she was until she was
Alas, no longer mine.
Begone
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