Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

[Larry Robinson]

How Fascism Will Come
"When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross."
- attributed to Sinclair Lewis
When fascism comes, it will greet us with a smile. It will get down on its knees to pray. It will praise Main Street and Wall Street. It will cheer for the home team. It will clap from the bleachers when the uninsured are left to die on the street. It will rally on the Washington Mall. It will raise monuments to its heroes and weep for them and place bouquets at their stone feet and trace with their fingers the names engraved on the granite wall and go on sending soldiers to die in the mountains of Afghanistan, in the deserts of Iraq. It will send doves to pluck out the eyes of its enemies, having no hawks to spare.

When fascism comes, it will sit down for tea with the governor of Texas. It will pee in the mosques from California to Tennessee, chanting, "Wake up America, the enemy is here." It will sing the anthems of corporatization, privatization, demonization, monopolization. It will be interviewed, lovingly, on talk radio. It'll have talking points and a Facebook page and a disdain for big words or hard consonants. It won't bother to read. It will shred all its books. It will lambast the teachers and outlaw the unions.

When fascism comes, it will look good. It will have big hair, pressed suits, lapel pins. It will control all the channels. It will ride in on Swift Boats. It will sit on the Supreme Court. It will court us with fear. It will woo us with hope. When fascism comes, it will sell shares of itself on the stock market. It will get rich, then it will get obscenely rich, then it will stop paying taxes. It will leave us in the dust. It will kick our ass. It won't have to break a sweat to fool us twice. It will be too big to fail.

When fascism comes to America, it will enter on the winds of our silence and indifference and complacency. And on that day, one hundred thousand poets will gather. In book stores and libraries, bars and cafes, in their houses and apartments, in schools and on street corners, they will gather. In Albania, Bangladesh, Botswana, Bulgaria, Chile, China, Czech Republic, Finland, Guatemala, Hungary, Macedonia, Malawi, Qatar, crying, laughing, screaming. They will wrap the sad music of humanity in bits of word cloth and hang them, like prayers, on the tree of life.


- Terry Ehret

[Larry Robinson]

Note to Self


Take the picture
from the desk
and put it
in the drawer.
It was true
to a moment
that was before,
but now as
lightning unzips
the sky and now
as the moon
is wholly new
you are no longer
the one the camera knew
with smile aslant
and lashes half-mast
in dreamy fringe.
It's okay to cry,
to want to grasp-
it's so human to want
to frame the past
and then attach it
to the fridge or set
it shrine-like on the shelf.
It is not so sad,
tell yourself,
to put the image away.
Notice how
much more you
look out the window.
Notice how much
more you look
at the vase.
And who is
doing the looking?
If sadness comes,
invite it for tea
and drink the dark
cup together. Take
turns sipping, take
your time. You'll
reach the bottom
soon enough.


- Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

[Larry Robinson]

Straight Talk From Fox


Listen says fox it is music to run
over the hills to lick
dew from the leaves to nose along
the edges of the ponds to smell the fat
ducks in their bright feathers but
far out, safe in their rafts of
sleep. It is like
music to visit the orchard, to find
the vole sucking the sweet of the apple, or the
rabbit with his fast-beating heart. Death itself
is a music. Nobody has ever come close to
writing it down, awake or in a dream. It cannot
be told. It is flesh and bones
changing shape and with good cause, mercy
is a little child beside such an invention. It is
music to wander the black back roads
outside of town no one awake or wondering
if anything miraculous is ever going to
happen, totally dumb to the fact of every
moment's miracle. Don't think I haven't
peeked into windows. I see you in all your seasons
making love, arguing, talking about God
as if he were an idea instead of the grass,
instead of the stars, the rabbit caught
in one good teeth-whacking hit and brought
home to the den. What I am, and I know it, is
responsible, joyful, thankful. I would not
give my life for a thousand of yours.


- Mary Oliver

[Larry Robinson]

The Man with a Hoe
Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground,
The emptiness of ages in his face,
And on his back, the burden of the world.
Who made him dead to rapture and despair,
A thing that grieves not and that never hopes,
Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox?
Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw?
Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow?
Whose breath blew out the light within this brain?
Is this the Thing the Lord God made and gave
To have dominion over sea and land;
To trace the stars and search the heavens for power;
To feel the passion of Eternity?
Is this the dream He dreamed who shaped the suns
And marked their ways upon the ancient deep?
Down all the caverns of Hell to their last gulf
There is no shape more terrible than this--
More tongued with cries against the world's blind greed--
More filled with signs and portents for the soul--
More packed with danger to the universe.
What gulfs between him and the seraphim!
Slave of the wheel of labor, what to him
Are Plato and the swing of the Pleiades?
What the long reaches of the peaks of song,
The rift of dawn, the reddening of the rose?
Through this dread shape the suffering ages look;
Time's tragedy is in that aching stoop;
Through this dread shape humanity betrayed,
Plundered, profaned and disinherited,
Cries protest to the Powers that made the world,
A protest that is also prophecy.
O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,
Is this the handiwork you give to God,
This monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched?
How will you ever straighten up this shape;
Touch it again with immortality;
Give back the upward looking and the light;
Rebuild in it the music and the dream;
Make right the immemorial infamies,
Perfidious wrongs, immedicable woes?
O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,
How will the future reckon with this Man?
How answer his brute question in that hour
When whirlwinds of rebellion shake all shores?
How will it be with kingdoms and with kings--
With those who shaped him to the thing he is--
When this dumb Terror shall rise to judge the world,
After the silence of the centuries?


- Edwin Markham

[Larry Robinson]

Bowing


Before our time, before years that said no


when anyone passed a church and reverently


bowed, a soul somewhere might go


to heaven, just because of that bow.


And they all felt sad if a rooster crowed,


for something it reminded them of, a story


strong as the cables that hold up the world.


Nobody bows now if a rooster crows.





But maybe something you do, unknowing


or quick to react, without thought of gain’


or loss – maybe that act goes on


over mountains or oceans and finds the same


salvation for you that bowing does.


It is larger now, the church is, and the life


we are in. In it we bow to everything.


- William Stafford

[Larry Robinson]

Easter Exultet

Shake out your qualms.
Shake up your dreams.
Deepen your roots.
Extend your branches.
Trust deep water
and head for the open,
even if your vision
shipwrecks you.
Quit your addiction
to sneer and complain.
Open a lookout.
Dance on a brink.
Run with your wildfire.
You are closer to glory
leaping an abyss
than upholstering a rut.
Not dawdling.
Not doubting.
Intrepid all the way
Walk toward clarity.
At every crossroad
Be prepared
to bump into wonder.
Only love prevails.
En route to disaster
insist on canticles.
Lift your ineffable
out of the mundane.
Nothing perishes;
nothing survives;
everything transforms!
Honeymoon with Big Joy!

- James Broughton

[Larry Robinson]

What Must Be Said


Why do I stay silent, conceal for too long
What clearly is and has been
Practiced in war games, at the end of which we as survivors
Are at best footnotes.


It is the alleged right to first strike
That could annihilate the Iranian people--
Enslaved by a loud-mouth
And guided to organized jubilation--
Because in their territory,
It is suspected, a bomb is being built.


Yet why do I forbid myself
To name that other country
In which, for years, even if secretly,
There has been a growing nuclear potential at hand
But beyond control, because no testing is available?


The universal concealment of these facts,
To which my silence subordinated itself,
I sense as incriminating lies
And force--the punishment is promised
As soon as it is ignored;
The verdict of "anti-Semitism" is familiar.


Now, though, because in my country
Which from time to time has sought and confronted
The very crime
That is without compare
In turn on a purely commercial basis, if also
With nimble lips calling it a reparation, declares
A further U-boat should be delivered to Israel,
Whose specialty consists of guiding all-destroying warheads to where the existence
Of a single atomic bomb is unproven,
But through fear of what may be conclusive,
I say what must be said.


Why though have I stayed silent until now?
Because I think my origin,
Which has never been affected by this obliterating flaw,
Forbids this fact to be expected as pronounced truth
Of the country of Israel, to which I am bound
And wish to stay bound.


Why do I say only now,
Aged and with my last ink,
That the nuclear power of Israel endangers
The already fragile world peace?
Because it must be said
What even tomorrow may be too late to say;
Also because we--as Germans burdened enough--
Could be the suppliers to a crime
That is foreseeable, wherefore our complicity
Could not be redeemed through any of the usual excuses.


And granted: I am silent no longer
Because I am tired of the hypocrisy
Of the West; in addition to which it is to be hoped
That this will free many from silence,
Prompt the perpetrator of the recognized danger
To renounce violence and
Likewise insist
That an unhindered and permanent control
Of the Israeli nuclear potential
And the Iranian nuclear sites
Be authorized through an international agency
Of the governments of both countries.


Only this way are all, the Israelis and Palestinians,
Even more, all people, that in this
Region occupied by mania
Live cheek by jowl among enemies,
In the end also to help us.


- Guenter Grass

[Larry Robinson]

From The Western Shore

As the full moon
peeks,
rises,
and then rises full
above the horizon,
we,
on the western shore
of the bay,
the lake,
the ocean,
even on the shore
of a bucket of water,
each of us,
sees that the moon’s reflection
points directly towards us.

It even follows us
as we stroll the beach,
a moonbeam across the water,
directly towards us.

This wonder
is a lesson
from love,
which,
like the full moon’s reflection,
flows directly towards us,
towards each of us.
No matter where we are,
or who we are,
love flows
unceasingly
towards us.

Love’s moonlight
bathes us,
always.


- Trout Black

[Larry Robinson]

A Jewish Cemetery In Germany


On a little hill amid fertile fields lies a small cemetery,
a Jewish cemetery behind a rusty gate, hidden by shrubs,
abandoned and forgotten. Neither the sound of prayer
nor the voice of lamentation is heard there
for the dead praise not the Lord.
Only the voices of our children ring out, seeking graves
and cheering
each time they find one--like mushrooms in the forest, like
wild strawberries.
Here's another grave! There's the name of my mother's
mothers, and a name from the last century. And here's a name,
and there! And as I was about to brush the moss from the name--
Look! an open hand engraved on the tombstone, the grave
of a kohen,
his fingers splayed in a spasm of holiness and blessing,
and here's a grave concealed by a thicket of berries
that has to be brushed aside like a shock of hair
from the face of a beautiful beloved woman.


- Yehuda Amichai
(Translated by Chana Bloch and Chana Kronfeld)

[Larry Robinson]

The Work Of The Poet Is To Name What Is Holy


The work of the poet
is to name what is holy:


the spring snow
that hides unevenness
but also records
a dog walked at lunchtime,
the hieroglyphs of birds,
pawprints of a life
tiny but resolute;


how, like Russian dolls,
we nest in previous selves;


the lustrous itch
that compels an oyster
to forge a pearl,
or a poet a verse;


the drawing on of evening
belted at the waist;


snowfields of diamond dust;


the cozy monotony
of our days, in which
love appears with a holler;


the way a man's body
has its own geography––
cliffs, aqueducts, pumice fields,
but a woman's is the jungle,
hot, steamy, full of song;


the brain's curiosity shop
filled with quaint mementos
and shadow antiques
hidden away in drawers;


the plain geometry
of you, me, and art––
our angles at rest
among shifting forms.


The work of the poet
is to name what is holy,


and not to mind so much
the pinch of words
to cope with memories
weak as falling buildings,


or render loss, love,
and the penitentiary
of worry where we live.


The work of the poet
is to name what is holy,
a task fit for eternity,
or the small Eden of this hour.


- Diane Ackerman

[Larry Robinson]

To The Collector of Taxes, City and County
of San Francisco


No, there is no dog, terrier, male, dog's name Pedro
at this address. Pedro is in San Anselmo.


So I do not owe you the $4.00 license fee
(raised by the Supervisors to $5.00) I wish I did.


Is the point of being a poet to clean your plate,
use up things, make every loss valuable?


And when the last loss has been made valuable
disappear like night into the crouching wood?


I like you because you are such a plain image. You seem to say
if I pay my tax there is something I can own


for another year. There's nothing. There's no dog.
But thank you for even suggesting that there is.


- William Dickey

[Larry Robinson]

A Music


I employ the blind mandolin player
in the the tunnel of the Mètro. I pay him
a coin as hard as his notes,
and maybe he has employed me, and pays me
with his playing to hear him play.


Maybe we're necessary to each other,
and this vacant place has need of us both
––it's vacant, I mean, of dwellers,
is populated by passages and absences.


By some fate or knack he has chosen
to place his music in this cavity
where there's nothing to look at
and blindness costs him nothing.
Nothing was here before he came.


His music goes out among the sounds
of footsteps passing. The tunnel is the resonance
and meaning of what he plays.
It's his music, not the place, I go by.


In this light which is just a fact, like darkness
or the edge or end of what you may be
going toward, he turns his cap up on his knees
and leaves it there to ask and wait, and holds up
his mandolin, the lantern of his world;


his fingers make their pattern on the wires.
This is not the pursuing of rhythm
of a blind cane pecking in the sun,
but is a singing in a dark place.


- Wendell Berry

[Larry Robinson]

The Reckoning


All profits disappear: the gain
Of ease, the hoarded, secret sum;
And now grim digits of old pain
Return to litter up our home.


We hunt the cause of ruin, add,
Subtract, and put ourselves in pawn;
For all our scratching on the pad,
We cannot trace the error down.


What we are seeking is a fare
One way, a chance to be secure:
The lack that keep us what we are,
The penny that usurps the poor.


- Theodore Roethke

[Larry Robinson]

The Great American Poem


If this were a novel,
it would begin with a character,
a man alone on a southbound train
or a young girl on a swing by a farmhouse.


And as the pages turned, you would be told
that it was morning or the dead of night,
and I, the narrator, would describe
for you the miscellaneous clouds over the farmhouse


and what the man was wearing on the train
right down to his red tartan scarf,
and the hat he tossed onto the rack above his head,
as well as the cows sliding past his window.


Eventually—one can only read so fast—
you would learn either that the train was bearing
the man back to the place of his birth
or that he was headed into the vast unknown,


and you might just tolerate all of this
as you waited patiently for shots to ring out
in a ravine where the man was hiding
or for a tall, raven-haired woman to appear in a doorway.


But this is a poem, not a novel,
and the only characters here are you and I,
alone in an imaginary room
which will disappear after a few more lines,


leaving us no time to point guns at one another
or toss all our clothes into a roaring fireplace.
I ask you: who needs the man on the train
and who cares what his black valise contains?


We have something better than all this turbulence
lurching toward some ruinous conclusion.
I mean the sound that we will hear
as soon as I stop writing and put down this pen.


I once heard someone compare it
to the sound of crickets in a field of wheat
or, more faintly, just the wind
over that field stirring things that we will never see.


- Billy Collins

[Larry Robinson]

The Mystery


Some come at it
with weights and measures,
some waving a sieve.


Some sing to it,
ballads and carols,
hoping to coax forth
its hidden center,
unwind the sheath
of who it is.


Some tap on it
or deal heavy blows
with hammers,
trying to smash
its thick shield
force it to bow down.


some seek ways to clamber in,
explore its hidden vaults
and chambers.


Some lie down beside it,
breathe its cool scent,
become its own self.


- Dorothy Walters

[Larry Robinson]

The Nobodies

We are not, but could be.
We don't speak languages, but dialects.
We don't have religions, but superstitions.
We don't create art, but handicrafts.
We don't have culture, but folklore.
We are not human beings, but human resources.
We do not have faces, but arms.
We do not have names, but numbers.
We do not appear in the history of the world,
but in the police blotter of the local papers.
The nobodies, who are not worth
the bullets that kill them.


- Eduardo Galeano
(from The Book of Embraces)

[Larry Robinson]

Spring Azures


In spring the blue azures bow down
at the edges of shallow puddles
to drink the black rain water.
Then they rise and float away into the fields.


Sometimes the great bones of my life feel so heavy,
and all the tricks my body knows―
the opposable thumbs, the kneecaps,
and the mind clicking and clicking—


don’t seem enough to carry me through this world
and I think: how I would like


to have wings—
blue ones—
ribbons of flame.


How I would like to open them, and rise
from the black rain water.


And then I think of Blake, in the dirt and sweat of London—a boy
staring through the window, when God came
fluttering up.


Of course, he screamed,
and seeing the bobbin of God’s blue body
leaning on the sill,
and the thousand-faceted eyes.


Well, who knows.
Who knows what hung, fluttering, at the window
between him and the darkness.


Anyway, Blake the hosier’s son stood up
and turned away from the sooty sill and the dark city—
turned away forever
from the factories, the personal strivings,


to a life of the the imagination.




- Mary Oliver

[Larry Robinson]

The Discovery Of Daily Experience


It is a whisper. You turn somewhere,
hall, street, some great even: the stars
or the lights hold; your next step waits you
and the firm world waits - but
there is a whisper. You always live so,
a being that receives, or partly receives, or
fails to receive each moment's touch.


You see the people around you - the honors
they bear - a crutch, a cane, eye patch,
or the subtler ones, that fixed look, a turn
aside, or even the brave bearing: all declare
our kind, who serve on the human front and earn
whatever disguise will take them home. (I saw
Frank last week with his crutch de guerre.)


When the world is like this - and it is -
whispers, honors or penalties disguised - no wonder
art thrives like a pulse wherever civilized people,
or any people, live long enough in a place to
build, and remember, and anticipate; for we are
such beings as interact elaborately with what
surrounds us. The limited actual world we successively
overcome by fictions and by the mind's inventions
that cannot be quite arbitrary (and hence do reflect
the actual), but can escape the actual (and hence
may become art).



- William Stafford

[Larry Robinson]

I Remember The People

High above the roaring Klamath
in quiet meditation under the forest roof,
sitting on a river stone massively heavy
a round stone carried there by strong men
to make a circular stone foundation
to form a circular shelter
to create a circular village
to live a circular life
under the circles of eagle and osprey
under the circles of sun and moon.

Time circles the place I sit.
The forest and all its living things
continue making circles
covering and concealing
taking back to the earth
taking back to the river
the work of generations
of The People.

Scooped circles in the earth
and massively heavy stones
all that mark their passing.

One day, the stones too
will disappear.
Even now, In memorial
a circular tear
disappears from my bare leg.

- Doug von Koss

[Larry Robinson]

Oatmeal


I eat oatmeal for breakfast.
I make it on the hot plate and put steamed milk on it.
I eat it alone.
I am aware it is not good to eat oatmeal alone.
Its consistency is such that it is better for your mental health if someone eats it with you.
That is why I often think up an imaginary companion to have breakfast with.
Possibly it is even worse to eat oatmeal with an imaginary companion.
Nevertheless, yesterday morning, I ate my oatmeal--porridge, as he called it--with John Keats.
Keats said I was absolutely right to invite him: due to its glutinous texture, gluey lumpishness, hint of slime, and unusual
willingness to disintegrate, oatmeal must never be eaten alone.
He said that in his opinion, however, it is perfectly OK to eat it with an imaginary companion,
and he himself had enjoyed memorable porridges with Edmund Spenser and John Milton.
Even if eating oatmeal with an imaginary companion is not as wholesome as Keats claims, still you can learn something from it.
Yesterday morning, for instance, Keats told me about writing the "Ode To a Nightingale."
He had a heck of a time finishing it--those were his words--"Oi'ad a 'eck of a toime," he said, more or less, speaking through his porridge.
He wrote it quickly, on scraps of paper, which he then stuck in his pocket,
but when he got home, he couldn't figure out the order of the stanzas and he and a friend spread the papers on a table, and they made some
sense of them, but he isn't sure to this day if they got it right.
An entire stanza may have slipped into the lining of his jacket through a hole in the pocket.
He still wonders about the occasional sense of drift between stanzas,
and the way here and there a line will go into the configuration of a Moslem at prayer, then raise itself up and peer about, and then
lay itself down slightly off the mark, causing the poem to move forward with God's own reckless wobble.
He said someone told him that later in life Wordsworth heard about the scraps of paper on the table, and tried shuffling some stanzas of his own, but only made matters worse.
I would not have known about any of this except for my reluctance to eat oatmeal alone.
When breakfast was over, John recited "To Autumn."
He recited it slowly, with much feeling, and he articulated the words lovingly, and his odd accent sounded sweet.
He didn't offer much of a story of writing "To Autumn," I doubt if there is much of one.
But he did say the sight of a just harvested oat field got him started on it.
And two of the lines, "For Summer has o'er-brimmed their clammy cells" and "Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours,"
came to him while eating oatmeal alone.
I can see him--drawing a spoon through the stuff, gazing into its glimmering furrows, muttering--and it occurs to me:
maybe there is no sublime; only the shining of amnions tatters.
For supper tonight I am going to have a baked potato left over from lunch.
I am aware that a leftover baked potato is damp, slippery, and simultaneously gummy and crumbly,
and therefore I am going to invite Patrick Kavanaugh to join me.


- Galway Kinnell

[Claire]

Oh, that is wonderful!
Thank you from the bottom of my lonely bowl of porridge.

Oatmeal


I eat oatmeal for breakfast.
I make it on the hot plate and put steamed milk on it.
I eat it alone.
I am aware it is not good to eat oatmeal alone.
Its consistency is such that it is better for your mental health if someone eats it with you.
That is why I often think up an imaginary companion to have breakfast with.
Possibly it is even worse to eat oatmeal with an imaginary companion.
Nevertheless, yesterday morning, I ate my oatmeal--porridge, as he called it--with John Keats.
Keats said I was absolutely right to invite him: due to its glutinous texture, gluey lumpishness, hint of slime, and unusual
willingness to disintegrate, oatmeal must never be eaten alone.
He said that in his opinion, however, it is perfectly OK to eat it with an imaginary companion,
and he himself had enjoyed memorable porridges with Edmund Spenser and John Milton.
Even if eating oatmeal with an imaginary companion is not as wholesome as Keats claims, still you can learn something from it.
Yesterday morning, for instance, Keats told me about writing the "Ode To a Nightingale."
He had a heck of a time finishing it--those were his words--"Oi'ad a 'eck of a toime," he said, more or less, speaking through his porridge.
He wrote it quickly, on scraps of paper, which he then stuck in his pocket,
but when he got home, he couldn't figure out the order of the stanzas and he and a friend spread the papers on a table, and they made some
sense of them, but he isn't sure to this day if they got it right.
An entire stanza may have slipped into the lining of his jacket through a hole in the pocket.
He still wonders about the occasional sense of drift between stanzas,
and the way here and there a line will go into the configuration of a Moslem at prayer, then raise itself up and peer about, and then
lay itself down slightly off the mark, causing the poem to move forward with God's own reckless wobble.
He said someone told him that later in life Wordsworth heard about the scraps of paper on the table, and tried shuffling some stanzas of his own, but only made matters worse.
I would not have known about any of this except for my reluctance to eat oatmeal alone.
When breakfast was over, John recited "To Autumn."
He recited it slowly, with much feeling, and he articulated the words lovingly, and his odd accent sounded sweet.
He didn't offer much of a story of writing "To Autumn," I doubt if there is much of one.
But he did say the sight of a just harvested oat field got him started on it.
And two of the lines, "For Summer has o'er-brimmed their clammy cells" and "Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours,"
came to him while eating oatmeal alone.
I can see him--drawing a spoon through the stuff, gazing into its glimmering furrows, muttering--and it occurs to me:
maybe there is no sublime; only the shining of amnions tatters.
For supper tonight I am going to have a baked potato left over from lunch.
I am aware that a leftover baked potato is damp, slippery, and simultaneously gummy and crumbly,
and therefore I am going to invite Patrick Kavanaugh to join me.


- Galway Kinnell

[Larry Robinson]

Rivers

both my mother & I
were born at 6th & I Sts.


this river ebbs
& flows
ebbs & flows
gets dredged for silt
so boats can come up from the bay
I remember
being young, under 10
crossing the highway
(now boulevard)
with my cousin (now dead)
walking down to the bend
where the freeway overpass
now crosses the river
we were sneaking away
in search of hoboes
—an exotic breed of adult
we found an old campfire
with cans opened, charred
by the river
this abandoned campsite
—proof
I sat on a log there
my blood flowing faster
it was the first time
I saw the river
(it was called "the river" then)
wild


this river runs salty
reflects this town
clearly
it can't help it
something about the sun's magic
as salt crystals pick up mooncasts
we hear croaking frogs
chirping crickets
birds, boats, barges
trucks with their hay bales piled high
honk as they turn onto the boulevard
at the top of the bay


the tide rises
the tide falls
& though this river has no inland source
old Heraclitus' principle
still applies here
—the constant motion
equally at home in the town at its margins


I remember
the whale who visited Petaluma
in my mother's last week
people were trying to turn it back to sea
no, the whale wanted to see
to make this connection
before it died
& it did
& it disappeared the day she died
I always suspected my mother's complicity
having been her Jonah


- Bill Vartnaw

[Larry Robinson]

The 66th Apple Blossom Parade, 2012


The whole town seemed over-exposed in bright
new sunlight on the day of the Apple
Blossom parade. We stood four-thick watching
our children in uniform marching bands
pass by, the shined up fire trucks throwing
handfuls of bright candy, and the old men,
who continually ride their old tractors
or apple sprayers down the parade route.
Arcs of water spray out of old machines
that once carried lead and arsenic to
keep an orchard clean of unwanted pests
and the hot parade watchers beg for it.


All along the parade route the alate
woman appears. She spreads her golden wings
and dances next to the marching band. Then,
re-appears in front of the fire truck.
We laugh at her. Shoo her off. Think her a
fool. But she returns, dancing and smiling.


When the parade stops, we gather children.
The streets are swept. We go home to fallow
fields still freckled with unpruned trees still warm
from sunburns, still thinking of what’s passed us
by as the fog rolls in and sedates us.


- Iris Jamahl Dunkle

[Larry Robinson]

Weathering

Literally thin-skinned, I suppose, my face
catches the wind off the snow-line and flushes
with a flush that will never wholly settle. Well:
that was a metropolitan vanity,
wanting to look young for ever to pass.

I was never a Pre- Raphaelite beauty,
nor anything but pretty enough to satisfy
men who need to be seen with passable women.
but now that I am in love with a place
which doesn’t care how I look, or if I’m happy,

happy is how I look, and that’s all.
My hair will turn grey in any case,
my nails chip and flake, my waist thicken,
and the years work all their usual changes.
If my face is to be weather-beaten as well

that’s little enough lost, a fair bargain
for a year among lakes and fells, when simply
to look out my window at the high pass
makes me indifferent to mirrors and to what
my soul may wear over its new complexion.

- Fleur Adcock

[Larry Robinson]

Ode to the Artichoke


The tender-hearted
artichoke
got dressed as a warrior,
erect, built
a little cupola,
stood
impermeable
under
its scales,
around it
the crazy vegetables
bristled,
grew
astonishing tendrils,
cattails, bulbs,
in the subsoil
slept the carrot
with its red whiskers,
the grapevine
dried the runners
through which it carries the wine,
the cabbage
devoted itself
to trying on skirts,
oregano
to perfuming the world,
and the gentle
artichoke
stood there in the garden,
dressed as a warrior,
burnished
like a pomegranate,
proud,
and one day
along with the others
in large willow
baskets, it traveled
to the market
to realize its dream:
the army.
Amid the rows
never was it so military
as at the fair,
men
among the vegetables
with their white shirts
were
marshals
of the artichokes,
the tight ranks,
the voices of command,
and the detonation
of a falling crate,
but
then
comes
Maria
with her basket,
picks
an artichoke,
isn't afraid of it,
examines it, holds it
to the light as if it were an egg,
buys it,
mixes it up
in her bag
with a pair of shoes,
with a head of cabbage and a
bottle
of vinegar
until
entering the kitchen
she submerges it in a pot.
Thus ends
in peace
the career
of the armored vegetable
which is called artichoke,
then,
scale by scale
we undress
its delight
and we eat
the peaceful flesh
of its green heart.


- Pablo Neruda
(translated by Stephen Mitchell)








Oda a la Alcachofa por Pablo Neruda


La alcachofa
de tierno corazón
se vistió de guerrero,
erecta, construyó
una pequeña cúpula,
se mantuvo
impermeable
bajo
sus escamas,
a su lado,
los vegetales locos
se encresparon,
se hicieron
zarcillos, espadañas,
bulbos conmovedores,
en el subsuelo
durmió la zanahoria
de bigotes rojos,
la viña
resecó los sarmientos
por donde sube el vino,
la col
se dedicó
a probarse faldas,
el orégano
a perfumar el mundo,
y la dulce
alcachofa
allí en el huerto,
vestida de guerrero,
bruñida
como una granada,
orgullosa,
y un día
una con otra
en grandes cestos
de mimbre, caminó
por el mercado
a realizar su sueño:
la milicia.
En hileras
nunca fue tan marcial
como en la feria,
los hombres
entre las legumbres
con sus camisas blancas
eran
mariscales
de las alcachofas,
las filas apretadas,
las voces de comando,
y la detonación
de una caja que cae,
pero
entonces
viene
María
con su cesto,
escoge
una alcachofa,
no le teme,
la examina, la observa
contra la luz como si fuera un huevo,
la compra,
la confunde
en su bolsa
con un par de zapatos,
con un repollo y una
botella
de vinagre
hasta
que entrando a la cocina
la sumerge en la olla.
Así termina
en paz
esta carrera
del vegetal armado
que se llama alcachofa,
luego
escama por escama
desvestimos
la delicia
y comemos
la pacífica pasta
de su corazón verde.

[Larry Robinson]

To be of use


The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.


I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.


I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.


The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.


- Marge Piercy

[Larry Robinson]

Fish On


The lure contains the barbed hook.
No fish in his right mind would ever take that bait.
But the hook is hidden, that's how it works.
To satisfy some unmet need we take the bait.
In the watery world of the heart,
even when the near invisible line is seen,
we can't quite see it or grasp it for what it is.
The illusion is so subtle; we get lead down a path.
We're drawn away from the river of being present
towards something that appears to be nourishment, relief, distraction and
in our hungry desperation we go unconscious and bite.
Astonishingly, we return for more, over and over.


We travel with the hook set in our jaw or our gut without even knowing it.
No initial drag, just the illusion of satisfaction.
Until the drag on the line causes resistance,
then we thrash,
we go down deeper into the water.
No true understanding,
rather a reactive flight away from the consequences of our mistake.
Maybe I can break free if I make a run for it down stream,
or jump and twist with righteous indignation.


Slowly possibility and necessity insist on our breaking the habit of taking the bait.
To remove the hook we must tear the fragile false flesh of shame and pride and, as D.H. Lawrence says,
free ourselves from the endless repetition of the mistake.


To be conscious of the hook, line and lure we must see with different eyes and we must be willing to endure the pain of removing the hook.
We can get help, but our own hands must grasp the hook and pull it free.


To feel, oh to feel, all of it, every twist and bend in the trap of the barbed hook.
To alter our fishy habit of taking the bait takes skill and courage.
The culmination of years of learning, in this all too human school for fish on a line.
Fish on!




- Alan Cohn

[Larry Robinson]

The People Of The Other Village

hate the people of this village
and would nail our hats
to our heads for refusing in their presence to remove them
or staple our hands to our foreheads
for refusing to salute them
if we did not hurt them first: mail them packages of rats,
mix their flour at night with broken glass.
We do this, they do that.
They peel the larynx from one of our brothers’ throats.
We devein one of their sisters.
The quicksand pits they built were good.
Our amputation teams were better.
We trained some birds to steal their wheat.
They sent to us exploding ambassadors of peace.
They do this, we do that.
We canceled our sheep imports.
They no longer bought our blankets.
We mocked their greatest poet
and when that had no effect
we parodied the way they dance
which did cause pain, so they, in turn, said our God
was leprous, hairless.
We do this, they do that.
Ten thousand (10,000) years, ten thousand
(10,000) brutal, beautiful years.

- Thomas Lux

[Larry Robinson]

Olives


Sometimes the taste of these strong olives cured slowly in oil,
with cloves of garlic, bay leaves and chillies and lemon and salt,
conjures a whiff of a bygone age: rocky crannies,
goats, shade and the sound of pipes,
in the tune of the breath of primeval times. The chill of a cave, a hidden cottage
in a vineyard, a lodge in a garden, a slice of barley bread and well water.
Your are from there. You have lost your way.
Here is exile. Your death will come, and lay a knowing hand on your shoulder.
Come, it’s time to go home.


- Amos Oz

[Larry Robinson]

Double Bubble

I’m here to find a buyer for this house.

I open the door to the garage to see
Piled in a contemptuous heap
Children’s stuff, a basinet
Tiny clothes and Fisher-Price plastic

A little pink sock with a ruffle
That once wrapped a tiny foot
A crib, the necessaries of caring
For a stripling, a baby, to be cherished
And protected until she can stand strong.

Abandoned.

The house is tortured. Beat up,
Demolished and demoralized.
The toilet, lights, electrical wire
Removed.
Door handles, drawer handles
Wall sconce holders for candles
Gone.

The sad and obvious choice was made
Steal everything from the house
Fill the truck
Pack a bag for the baby

Crawling through the wreckage of other people’s life
I patch together the money I need
That keeps me from being one of them.

The scattered ashes of passion
The bubble in a bubble
That once burst, burst twice
Contained the soggy dust
of a dream once lush
like an oasis of hope

The hope abides
The oasis is dry

- Jim Paschal

[Larry Robinson]

Cloud Hidden


This chapter is closed now,
not one word more
until we meet some day
and the voices rising
to the window
take wing and fly.


Open the old casement
to the lands we have forgotten,
look
to the mountains and ridgeways
and the steep valleys,
quilted by green,
here, as the last words fall away,
the great and silent rivers of life
are flowing into the oceans
and on a day like any other
they will carry you again,
abandoned,
on the currents you have fought,
to the place
you did not know
you belonged.


And just as you came into life
surprised
you go out again,
lifted,
cloud-hidden
from one unknown
to another
and fall and turn
and appear again in the mountains


not remembering
how in the beginning
you refused
to join,
could not speak of,
did not even know
you were that
deep
calm
welling
almost forgotten
spring
of eternal presence.


- David Whyte

[Larry Robinson]

Missing the Boat


It is not so much that the boat passed
and you failed to notice it.
It is more like the boat stopping
directly outside your bedroom window,
the captain blowing the signal-horn,
the band playing a rousing march.
The boat shouted, waving bright flags,
its silver hull blinding in the sunlight.
But you had this idea you were going by train.
You kept checking the time-table,
digging for tracks.
And the boat got tired of you,
so tired it pulled up the anchor
and raised the ramp.
The boat bobbed into the distance,
shrinking like a toy—
at which point you probably realized
you had always loved the sea.




- Naomi Shihab-Nye

[Larry Robinson]

I was born on a night when the wind


I was born on a night when the wind tore a hole through the sky.

I was raised by goatherds and learned the speech of owls from an old woman
who walked her dogs across the green field.

This explains nothing.

“Look,” the old woman said. “Do you see that ragged place between the branches
of the white pine? That’s the place the wind tore in the night when you were born.”

And so I took to climbing trees. Hardly touched the ground for days at a time. Pressed my skin against their cool, rough skin, smelled the resinous pitch that smeared my arms and fingers, pulled green needles and tucked them in my hair like feathers. Like love tokens.

Caught in the arms of pine or beech or oak, I was an angel, beloved of god. I was a lion in the dappled grass, a bird held in the hand of the lord of the mountain, the fire-eyed maker of mischief, king of the shadows.

- Terry Ehret

[Larry Robinson]

Morning Kitchen Life is too sweet, possibilities too huge. I stand in the morning kitchen stunned. In the last minute (minute!): taste of lemon, Keemun tea, cream (pause to consider how many miracles it took for lemon, tea, cream to end up in my avid hands) weight of dog ear, begging mystery eyes (animals live with us, how astonishing!) silky warm running water over cold hands (running water, enough said) hummingbird’s jeweled head at the feeder (is that her tongue? a hummingbird has a tongue!). Enough with the mystery, the grace. Time to bundle up, get busy, get to work. It is not to be. Lilly enters, simple marvel of daughter, taut with succulent life, sinks me like a stone in a wishing well. But what would I wish for? Nothing but this. - Jennifer Louden

[Larry Robinson]

Another Spring


The seasons revolve and the years change
With no assistance or supervision.
The moon, without taking thought,
Moves in its cycle, full, crescent, and full.


The white moon enters the heart of the river;
The air is drugged with azalea blossoms;
Deep in the night a pine cone falls;
Our campfire dies out in the empty mountains.


The sharp stars flicker in the tremulous branches;
The lake is black, bottomless in the crystalline night;
High in the sky the Northern Crown
Is cut in half by the dim summit of a snow peak.


O heart, heart, so singularly
Intransigent and corruptible,
Here we lie entranced by the starlit water,
And moments that should each last forever


Slide unconsciously by us like water.


- Kenneth Rexroth

[meherc]

This poem touched me to the core this day. Thank you for all of your postings. We need poetry. Especially taken by :


"O heart, heart, so singularly
Intransigent and corruptible,
Here we lie entranced by the starlit water,
And moments that should each last forever


Slide unconsciously by us like water.

Another Spring


The seasons revolve and the years change
With no assistance or supervision.
The moon, without taking thought,
Moves in its cycle, full, crescent, and full.


The white moon enters the heart of the river;
The air is drugged with azalea blossoms;
Deep in the night a pine cone falls;
Our campfire dies out in the empty mountains.


The sharp stars flicker in the tremulous branches;
The lake is black, bottomless in the crystalline night;
High in the sky the Northern Crown
Is cut in half by the dim summit of a snow peak.


O heart, heart, so singularly
Intransigent and corruptible,
Here we lie entranced by the starlit water,
And moments that should each last forever


Slide unconsciously by us like water.


- Kenneth Rexroth

[Larry Robinson]

The Moon

The moon can be taken in teaspoons or as a capsule every two hours. It is a good hypnotic or narcotic and also relieves hangovers of those drunk on philosophy. A piece of the moon tucked in the pocket is a better good luck charm than a rabbit’s foot; It works as a love charm, to get rich without connections and to ward off doctors. It can be given as a treat to children when they can’t sleep. A few moon drops in the eyes of the elderly help them die well. Put a tender new moon leaf under your pillow and you will see your heart’s desire. Always carry a small jar of moon air for when you are drowning, And give a key to the moon to prisoners and the disillusioned, to those condemned to death and those condemned to life. There is no better tonic than the moon given in precise, controlled doses.

- Jaime Sabines (1926-99)
(translation by Rebecca del Rio)

La Luna


La luna se puede tomar a cucharadas
o como una cápsula cada dos horas.
Es buena como hipnótico y sedante
y también alivia
a los que se han intoxicado de filosofía.
Un pedazo de luna en el bolsillo
es mejor amuleto que la pata de conejo:
sirve para encontrar a quien se ama,
para ser rico sin que lo sepa nadie
y para alejar a los médicos y las clínicas.
Se puede dar de postre a los niños
cuando no se han dormido,
y unas gotas de luna en los ojos de los ancianos
ayudan a bien morir.


Pon una hoja tierna de la luna
debajo de tu almohada
y mirarás lo que quieras ver.
Lleva siempre un frasquito del aire de la luna
para cuando te ahogues,
y dale la llave de la luna
a los presos y a los desencantados.
Para los condenados a muerte
y para los condenados a vida
no hay mejor estimulante que la luna
en dosis precisas y controladas.


Jaime Sabines (1926-1999)

[Larry Robinson]

crawl space

when he was led away
his comforters thought
of his steps

in forests of violet rose
& live grenades at his back
& branches random & sharp

pages he wrote in code
hidden & never found


sausage he craved with cheese


& azure pencil with note

remained in his bed of straw

& his hands
like clanging bells

moved with him until death
each finger mottled & soft
more sacred than the last
- Thaisa Frank

[Larry Robinson]

Neighborhood Road Prayer


May the patches in our gravel road
Hold
Through another season.


Filled with road base mixture,
Like an apology,
each one,


For slights imagined or real,
what difference?
Filled to over the brim


More than you'd expect
To be needed,
Tamped solid with full heart


Until at last, that satisfying - Thwack!
And once again it is
seamless


As full
forgiveness.


- Scott O'Brien

[Larry Robinson]

Horses at Midnight Without a Moon

Our heart wanders lost in the dark woods.
Our dream wrestles in the castle of doubt.
But there's music in us. Hope is pushed down
but the angel flies up again taking us with her.
The summer mornings begin inch by inch
while we sleep, and walk with us later
as long-legged beauty through
the dirty streets. It is no surprise
that danger and suffering surround us.
What astonishes is the singing.
We know the horses are there in the dark
meadow because we can smell them,
can hear them breathing.
Our spirit persists like a man struggling
through the frozen valley
who suddenly smells flowers
and realizes the snow is melting
out of sight on top of the mountain,
knows that spring has begun.


- Jack Gilbert

[Larry Robinson]

What Is Bounty Without A Beggar?



What is bounty without a beggar? Generosity without a guest?
Be beggar and guest; for beauty is seeking a mirror, water is crying for a thirsty man.
Hopelessness and need are tasteful bezel for that ruby.


Your poverty is a Burak;* don't be a coffin riding on other men's shoulders.
Thank God you hadn't the means or you may have been a Pharaoh.


The prayer of Moses was, "Lord, I am in need of Thee!"
The Way of Moses is all hopelessness and need and it is the only way to God.
From when you were an infant, when has hopelessness ever failed you?


Joseph's path leads into the pit; don't flee across the chessboard of this world, for it is His game and we are checkmate! checkmate!


Hunger makes stale bread more delicious than halvah.
Your spiritual discomfort is spiritual indigestion; seek hunger and passion and need!


A mouse is a nibbler. God gave him mind in proportion to his needs.
Without need God gives nothing.


How will you impress God? You are a hundred thousand dinars in His debt!
A beggar shows his blindness and palsy,
he does not say, "Give me bread, O, people! I am a rich man with granaries and palaces!"


Bring a hundred sacks of gold and God will say, "Bring the heart."
And if you bring a dead heart carried like a coffin on your shoulder,
God will say, "O, cheat! Is this a graveyard? Bring the live heart! Bring the live heart!"


If you haven't any knowledge and opinions,
have good opinions about God. This is the way.
If you can only crawl, crawl to Him.
If you can not pray sincerely, offer your dry, hypocritical, agnostic prayer; for God in His mercy accepts bad coin.
If you have a hundred doubts of God,
make them into ninety doubts. This is the way.


O, Seeker! Though you have broken your vows a hundred times,
come again! Come again!
For God has said, "Though you are on high or in the pit consider me, for I am the Way."


- Jelaluddin Rumi
(Translated By Daniel Liebert)

[Larry Robinson]

Second Spring

All day she sweats over griddles
feeding whoever shows up
pies roll from her fingers
birds and fish roast
she goes home and cools off in the shower

at dusk she comes to the other side of the courtyard
vines curl around tables
glass and silver shine like fruit
the fountain gathers her in song
a young man smiles and hands her a menu

she sips ice water and reviews her choices
around her people talk and flirt
their voices float like green tiles in the evening’s design
of savor and candles, kindness and flowers

suffering gave its blessing
sweat turned into wine
she dips her bread in oil and toasts the night
some grace we say alone


- Gwynn O’Gara

[Bird Watcher]

I love, love, love this poem. Gwynn, I hope you see/know our appreciation!

[Larry Robinson]

Family Reunion


The divorced mother and her divorcing
daughter. The about-to-be ex-son-in-law
and the ex-husband's adopted son.
The divorcing daughter's child, who is


the step-nephew of the ex-husband's
adopted son. Everyone cordial:
the ex-husband's second wife
friendly to the first wife, warm


to the divorcing daughter's child's
great-grandmother, who was herself
long ago divorced. Everyone
grown used to the idea of divorce


Almost everyone has separated
from the landscape of childhood.
Collections of people in cities
are divorced from clean air and stars.


Toddlers in day care are parted
from working parents, schoolchildren
from the assumption of unbloodied
daylong safety. Old people die apart


from all they've gathered over time,
and in strange beds. Adults
grow estranged from a God
evidently divorced from history;


most are cut off from their own
histories, each of which waits
like a child left at day care.
What if you turned back for a moment


and put your arms around yours?
Yes, you might be late for work;
no, your history doesn't smell sweet
like a toddler's head. But look


at those small round wrists,
that short-legged, comical walk.
Caress your history—who else will?
Promise to come back later.


Pay attention when it asks you
simple questions: Where are we going?
Is it scary? What happened? Can
I have more now? Who is that?


- Jeredith Merrin

[Larry Robinson]

Walking the Limantour Spit

Audacious purple lupine bushes block my path,
but who could be angry with bushes so fragrant
I feel as if I am walking through a cloud of scent

Over the dunes to the beach,
rest stop in the warm sand
vest off, long sleeve shirt shed
short-sleeve shirt too
just my tank top and rolled up red pants
I am soaking in sun and wave sound
like a thirsty plant

Later, I walk the beach barefoot
a man walks by, bare chest and shorts
smartphone clutched in his left hand
like some portable umbilicus
with wireless umbilical cord to the mother net
I think of my own insatiable desire for more and more knowledge
what fierce longing does this plastic and the virtual web assuage?
Facebook, twitter, youtube, myspace
our longing to feel a part of everything and everyone
always turned on, always tuned in

my bare feet speak to me of wet, warm sand
the tiny hairs on my face and arms dance with cool wind, warm sun

Is all this electronic connection an attempt to re-enter the womb?
our substitute for tribe and village?
Our new religion:
one part ethers, one part technology,
one part love?

What is the meeting place of mother earth and mother net?
does the net nurture me as wind and sky, and the sand
that collects in my Vibram 5 finger shoes?

as I reach the path back to the parking lot
a woman asks - is it always this cold at the beach?
I tell her of the sheltered bay and a beach named Heart's Desire
and another named Ho'okena - we speak of dolphins
and I remember what its like to meet up with their sleek grey bodies
swimming in and out of view - calling me to a sweet, fierce love that facebook has yet to match

She tells me she is a bodyworker,
recently moved from Connecticut to Fairfax
she tells me she has great hands
that she is so good because she is able to listen to body-speak and follow body flow
I take her card
she writes down directions to Heart's Desire
I feel the vibrancy of our chance meeting and service to one another
if my ear or face had been absorbed in the electronic ethers I would have missed this moment

I love the internet - I have spiritual experiences and re-connect with long lost loves
I love this planet - I have spiritual experiences and chance meetings with lizards and fragrant bushes and sometimes human beings
may I always have the wisdom and heart to know when to be present to life
when to lay down the plastic and take up flesh and breath and being

I believe the emerging unexpected can appear in either world,
let me be open always to its calling -
always aware of the difference between distraction
and interaction -
habit and love

- Monnie Reba Efross

[Larry Robinson]

Fighting Words

Long the rich have been protected
By the walls that can’t endure;
By the walls that they erected
To divide them from the poor.
Crumbling now, they should not trust them,
For their end is drawing near;
Walls of Cant and walls of Custom,
Walls of Ignorance and Fear.

Tyrants, grip your weapons firmer,
Grip them firmly by the helves;
For the poor begin to murmur
Loudly now among themselves.
Hear us dare to say that Heaven
Gave us equal rights with you,
Dare to say the world was given
Unto all and not the few.

- Henry Lawson (1902)

[Larry Robinson]

Traveling Through the Dark


Traveling through the dark I found a deer
dead on the edge of the Wilson River road.
It is usually best to roll them into the canyon:
that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead.


By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car
and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing;
she had stiffened already; almost cold.
I dragged her off; she was large in the belly.


My fingers touching her side brought me the reason --
her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting,
alive, still, never to be born.
Beside that mountain road I hesitated.


The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights;
under the hood purred the steady engine.
I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red;
around our group I could hear the wilderness listen.


I thought hard for us all -- my only swerving --
then pushed her over the edge into the river.


- William Stafford

[Larry Robinson]

The Science of Life


You can in the first place
not be born


failing that
you can be buried
or be cremated
give your body up for bone
skin organ various tissue
transplants
be stuffed
go down in water and never be found
die in the desert and be eaten
by small animals
or failing all these
live forever


- Miller Williams

[Larry Robinson]

Moon Over Laguna de Santa Rosa


It is a rueful moon that drifts over
Laguna de Santa Rosa tonight--
River that flows both ways carrying
History heavy on its back. Those who
First recorded what they saw were in awe
Of the wooded plain, ripe with water and
Animal life. But change was drastic. First, the cattle ranchers cleared and burned the Live Oaks
Leaving their ominously blackened bodies girdling the golden tule fields.
Then the Gold Rush increased the price of game--
white and grey geese, ducks, deer antelope, elk
Even the few grizzlies that had survived
Were caught and sold for outrageous prices
on docks of the Petaluma river.
The remaining oaks were split and corded,
or reduced to charcoal. Then channels dug
To drain the cattle farms. Then the sewage ponds
Dug and filled. Today, the moon hangs low in
The sky. Not full, just a thin fingernail
Illuminating a single path back
past the remaining oaks, past forgetting.


- Iris Jamahl Dunkle

[Larry Robinson]

Relax


Bad things are going to happen.


Your tomatoes will grow a fungus


and your cat will get run over.


Someone will leave the bag with the ice cream


melting in the car and throw


your blue cashmere sweater in the drier.


Your husband will sleep


with a girl your daughter’s age, her breasts spilling


out of her blouse. Or your wife


will remember she’s a lesbian


and leave you for the woman next door. The other cat –


the one you never really liked — will contract a disease


that requires you to pry open its feverish mouth


every four hours for a month.


Your parents will die.


No matter how many vitamins you take,


how much Pilates, you’ll lose your keys,


your hair and your memory. If your daughter


doesn’t plug her heart


into every live socket she passes,


you’ll come home to find your son has emptied


your refrigerator, dragged it to the curb,


and called the used appliance store for a pick up — drug money.


There’s a Buddhist story of a woman chased by a tiger.


When she comes to a cliff, she sees a sturdy vine


and climbs half way down. But there’s also a tiger below.


And two mice — one white, one black — scurry out


and begin to gnaw at the vine. At this point


she notices a wild strawberry growing from a crevice.


She looks up, down, at the mice.


Then she eats the strawberry.


So here’s the view, the breeze, the pulse


in your throat. Your wallet will be stolen, you’ll get fat,


slip on the bathroom tiles of a foreign hotel


and crack your hip. You’ll be lonely.


Oh taste how sweet and tart


the red juice is, how the tiny seeds


crunch between your teeth.


- Ellen Bass