Bed as world

My grandson’s pleasure

is to sit on the bed

under a sheet

teepeed by his head

while I lie next to him

and read. As if the sheet

has just fallen

from a high mountain,

the entire snow-cap

intact, and now he is

the mountain and I am

the foothills at his knee,

sending echoes up

to his head, the peak,

my voice a yodler’s calling

or a squirrel's clicking

or a bear's bellowing

or a train's chug-chugging

or a bell's ding-donging

across a deep valley

where children behind

gaping glassless windows

are falling asleep in the clean

cool down of their beds,

all around them

puffing complexities 

of another world.

nomadic days & nights - a new project

These are very intensely focused days for me as we get closer to the births of another grandson (due Feb. 20) and a granddaughter (due Mar. 12). It is hard to get my head around this, but my heart has been ready for a while. :)

But the world goes on. As you know if you've known me long, news of the world's great (and small!) collapses weigh heavily on me, as they do upon you, too, no doubt. I find that I must be inspired by something for it all not to pull me down.

So I decided to begin a study that would help me focus in on a particular area, to get the context of history, art, music, literature. Because I've lived in Istanbul, I chose that part of the world.

I have started a new writing space for reflecting on these investigations. I will be posting there occasionally to reflect and better understand the current state of worldwide collapse. I want to live neither optimistically nor pessimistically, but realistically toward a transformation of humanity. It is a silk road, washed in blood and beauty.

I will keep posting here too, when I feel I must write a poem or something.

If you are interested in the topic, I would love to welcome you to that space. But please, do not feel obligated. I understand how much there is to read, and not enough time. I do relish conversation about these important things, but I start nomadic days & nights primarily for myself. I need to write in order to reflect. This will help me keep at it.

21 crows

I understand Wallace Stevens’ need to write thirteen ways. A multiplication, an exponential transformation occurs when I see these shining birds on roads of snow.

They are black jack dealt on a white table,

fortune and misfortune as one.

A constellation of flying stars,

of beaks and wings on a white sky

in the world’s negative.

Hunger falling in waves

like wind from broken trees.

They are 21 nights of insomnia —

a new habit of wakefulness.

Glyphs of a new language,

shining blue.

A black coat

lifting when I pass

floating back down

to clothe its dying friend.

They are a bridge from

sky to tree

tree to possum

possum to me.

They are strangers

or lovers

depending on the light.

They are infinity

mile by mile

Really, this could go on and on. I wonder what you see in 21 crows?

Juniper night

Outside the small window,

the juniper where I first 

saw bluebird, so shy I

frightened him away a year

appearing at the back door.

The tree now winter-cloaked,

ermine collared, the afternoon 

darks to evening, wanes

to diamond night, hoary moon

half bitten, ragged edge

like the ice-blue berry.

Wind ferocious and quiet,

but the half-moonball does not

rock out of sight, its

brilliant light turns diffident 

edge into blue night.

Wind that bends

the fingers of earth,

blues them into moonblight,

points my hair at the light,

closes its eyes, softly

lifts and puts our rest to flight.