On damaged knees in wet and sweet dark dirt,
the gardener in his plot mumbles:
his soul is singing songs of friable decay,
of tingling life through fingers’ sifting touch.
.
He presents his face, unashamed and
divinity anoints him priest, seer, Adam’s son
with sacred smudge of sweat and primal dust.
All joy is not in bloom but in seeding.
An Elysian blunder was how it began;
a careless spark spewed over heaven’s brim
and shrubbery was ablaze in heathen/land.
The worst part was the humorless witness:
flock-boys were bothersome with time
to watch and wonder and suspect more.
Since original fire could not consume…
merely entice and dazzle and show,
improvisation was called for, so I AM
assigned an asinine, too/big quest, enough
to quiver and quail a shepherd’s lust
to tell and brag of what he had witnessed.
We know how that turned out.
The cold wind owned the day.
Sniggering, sliding icicle ghost
against my cringing neck,
he bent me beneath his gray face;
pale narcissus was humbled,
hanging face in humility
at his own audacity
to dare flaunt with pride.
Even the audience trees paid homage
with chins drawn tight to chest
with a curious tilt of head.
We walk daily; Fuzz, so ravenously alive,
reclaiming spots he owned the day before,
brashly stolen, claimed by a vagabond mutt.
This was my take at first, his selfishness:
primal greed.
Now I see only frantic glee of knowing wafted
through quivering nostrils scripture enshrined in golden globes
left to entice on green/grass blades and sticks.
He wears the mantel of joy reading ecstatic visions;
cheeks pulsating, pulling in holograms only he can see.
wonders I can never see….never imagine!
Fuzz is joyous in his bliss of piss and I
cursed with crude senses, can only cry for his joy;
for joy is joy, not to be diminished.
If he in canine/glee jerks our tether in disregard of me,
I still can only smile though yanked, drug hard
from bush to yellow spot of grass and post.
The blissful are pardoned for thoughtlessness.
Just an old man on a fast, healthful walk,
I was ambushed on quiet Magnolia Street;
my assailants, two boys, seven or eight,
flaunted their plastic guns from their dead yard.
One sprayed me from the hip, old-gangster style,
the other, took careful head and chest shots,
leering at me with deliberate calm.
Refusing to ordain their murder play,
the chest/clutching drama/death of feigned pain
on a twisted face, which they demanded;
I threw them my pain and a snubbing of
their killing fields, a dam/you/glare as only
an old man tired of rote/learning/games can.
Incessant perforations of the air
by forced/breathe bullets pursued me far past
my escape around the corner to Oak.
Their muddled voicings of derisive taunts
rent the air for my refusal to die.
The leaves are fallen and the wind laments
their leaving for they mark his passage
painting visibility on the ethereal.
My face and ears feel a cold breath
face/on as our directions collide
on this sunny yet cold, empty street.
A chime to my right sings winds intent,
his hope to fly till the tumult of his birth
dissipates to calm, allowing him to lie
and rest quietly as a wreath on a grave.
Bison moseyed nonchalantly huge
among our tents, hushing with awe,
on their way down to the Yellowstone
to drink in saffron, morning light.
The kids, dumbstruck, pointed in glee
as one mountainous beast halted
and glared; signing with oracle eyes:
“Today I will be your token beast.
Tomorrow you will be mine; locked
in amber, stone and layered time.
I will hoove your useless remains;
eating grasses from cranial urns
recalling nothing of your holocaust.”
Can beast, once a coveted commodity
slaughtered for trophy, flesh or skin,
mimic disdain? I know I saw it there.
Guilt mandates we heap self-accolades
for our forbearance against a token few
free, yet still, goods for our pleasure.
Will we be allotted a token few to roam?
Natural, unstained, just shaped by my hand;
every so gently, my fingers caress
your lustrous, polished surfaces.
Is it your innate beauty I cherish,
or my own creation I so admire?
Far off the path, once for wagons, horses and sturdy legs, now returned to green/growth and rut/ravaged into a faint trail I find the place spoken of, the necessary spring source, hidden in tangled vines/web, secreted away below a stone surround snugged in emerald moss; now briefly guarded by March’s pale bluebell sentinels.
The only evidence of human touch: the dry-stacked surround and haunting creaks…muffled thuds….underfoot of roof/tin buried beneath a century’s damp humus. No foundation stones, roof rafters or siding survive; all salvaged or burned or rotted away by nature’s plan.
Searching for origins of myth; family tales hinted of this place; of skimpy, poor raisings and violent pasts; of one, if word of mouth can be believed, being strung by his neck in this, his yard, from this massive oak, in front of family for desertion from the war that cleaved both family flesh and a nation’s harmony myth. Voices still cry from beneath the ground, some say, but I only hear flora sway and taste the water’s cooling release; the taste savored by the one hanged in this, his once yard.
Mountain laurel, head high, further extends the shade and boast purest porcelain, blood/pink-tinged, blossoms. Minute Bird-foot violets peer …surprised…from the knurled feet of the oak that lives with shame of complicity. The earth thrust spiraling fern/fronds upward in rampant arrays, prayerfully uncoiling, reaching for dappled pale light, offering beauty’s recompense for the chaos and raging rants of her progeny.
Off a path once for wagons and sturdy
legs, now rutted and rocked into a trail,
I find the source, the spring-head spoken of,
sleeping in deep shaded vines, secreted
by a low, sweating stone surround, finely
encased in velvety/emeralded moss
and guarded by pale bluebell sentinels.
The only evidence of human touch,
the surround and haunting creaks beneath leaves
of roof/tin’s leaf/muffled thud underfoot.
The jeweled woods thrust spiraling fern/fronds up
in rampant arrays of prideful bearings
uncoiling toward the dappled pale light.
Minute individuals of Bird-foot
violet and Indian Pipe peer from
bases of old-growth pine and giant popular.
Mountain laurel, head high, darkening the shade
boast purest porcelain blossoms of white.
•
I came searching for origins of myth:
family history told of this place,
of skimpy raisings and violent pasts.
Of one, if word of mouth can be believed,
strung by his neck in this, his yard, in front
of family for desertion from the war
that cleaved what little harmony was here.
Voices still cry from beneath the humus
some say, but I only hear flora sway
and taste the spring’s trickling, cooling release.
Belated Words 