Thirst

 

Thirst

 

I love the idea

don’t you

of cupping the water from the cauldron

after the night of rain

and the day of rain

and when the dark comes again

and as if the earth had opened its door

to view

the secrets briefly

that sort of dark that is a fragrance as well

and a perception, something like

the trust of a favor from one

to another and the other

not mucking it up 

sensing see the great cost

of it glowing against the broad

now clear now black sky

with its one close eye

that is open almost all the way

and this is where I like the idea

you’re still

with me I like the idea

of cupping my hands into the rain

barrel and letting the water rest

there long enough

& if I’m careful & calibrated

& you are at hand

to see it

the moon is

in the palms of me

& you lean in & whisk & wick the water into you

the way orchids do

& it becomes you

you who have the water and the moon

taken into you almost

forgive me my thirst, 

filling you

 

 

Arriving

 

 Arriving      

 

Such comfort in the bee

who, between the blooming

 

blooms, is seeking her sweet

gauzy drop of nearly

 

honey.  She is

homed here.  Didn’t the face

 

of the sun-

flower open for just this

 

moment with the bee,

this particular bee,

 

rich with her purses of pollen,

the dusts of thousands

 

of teachings stippling her

buzz and humming rise?

 

Tell me, isn’t the richness all the more

important because of her

 

needing to leave

the flower and take

 

on the risk of wind and being

heaved off course,

  

and doesn’t she survive because

of the pollen?  Watch this rising & falling

 

 / \

rising        

falling  

                     

                                   \ /

rising

falling

  

and see in it something very simple.

Feel it buzz.  Feel the buzz beginning

 

to rain on you, which when falling,

hear it? feel it?

 

sounds very much

like applause.

Thoughts, Stalks

 

Thoughts, Stalks

 

I see, maybe, the brief seep

of sunshine.  The world above

this roof opened and out

poured rain & her fast breathing

wind.  It blew

drops beyond the window

sill and onto my almost waking

face.  I’m sure I heard it

all falling but I was in

a place I rarely am and

dreaming – how cliché

to say I thought it was all

happening

there and not in the actual

outdoors above and below me where just

yesterday I was gleaning the garden

of its duff of winter

of the sawn down silver

grass reeds, their ten-foot

thin stick selves so like those great

blue heron legs I watch stalk

the water below the falls

so confident, yes? and the patient way

they make of standing…

anyway these reeds, this cane

is a jumble of some

abandoned game

of pick-up-sticks, or the semblance

of last year’s life sliding

down onto the bodies of last

year’s life, their deadness

clean & hollow & almost weightless,

a hundred or more in this bundle

and tens more bundles

to be hauled to the edge

of the property line to be

broken still more, to be lit (when

all this water stops falling)

and to be fed into the fire – this is

impermanence at her lengthiest

suspension: the debris gathered

after the sky quiets again

and the like the gleaners who come

through to sift the seeds, & the feet

of the wheat stalks yet are stepped

on and left alone to decompose

as the season marches, probes 

& sifts & spears & grows tall.

the anointing

 

all saints church
peterborugh, nh

the anointing 

 

            this is the vale of soul-making

                                    John Keats

 

what is crushed to make this moment

a chrism?

 

the balsam, the olive, and the sun in them

squeezed between Gethsemane & her groves

 

of wooden presses or granite millstones.  The flesh

of them, their pits & sprigs, the twigs, each revolution

 

                                    an unction, the oil felt

first by the repeating plod of the ox or donkey

 

or for the smaller presses

the farmer’s own, his children’s own feet

 

& hands.  slick glistening.  greenish ooze-

drip.  acidic.  waves and wakes of monotonous

 

labor.  daily.  daily.  daily the making, the taking,

the taken. 

Spring Ice

 

Spring Ice

 

has dislodged the caught

branch pinched in the middle of the dam

 

wall.  All winter it stuck up through

the cold-thick water, both paused

 

opportunists: the lodged drop-off

from who knows how far, what tree, is

 

in its decline and the bitter

months have stalled its decay.  The river,

 

her back up to the wind, takes her chances

& rises up the hump with all the motion

 

she can muster, the drop by drop she turns

by which she turns

 

solid.  It is probably the only time

she will ever be able

 

to rest, & to feel the clutch of the wood

 

& all the daughters & sons, all the animal

of them, summoned & coming & ultimately being

 

undone.  I didn’t see the ice-

out or the log let go.  The edge

 

of the dam is a thick rush of rain and snow-

melt.  The river has risen, will rise.  & just

 

nearly out of sight: that branch, the tip

of it treading, & the white foam

 

a brief beard, where only a week ago ice & snow

colder then & committed, to the last,

 

to the least, to holding, holding.

On a Sunday, Mid-March

 

 

On a Sunday, Mid-March 

 

Spring ice has dislodged the caught

branch pinched in the middle of the dam

 

since last spring.  & it was all winter stuck up through

the viscous-thick water, both paused

 

opportunists: the lodged drop-off from god-

knows-how far off, or what tree misses it,

 

is in its decline and the bitter

months have halted its decay.  The river,

 

her back to the wind, takes her chances

& rises up the hump with all the motion

 

she can muster, and drop by drop she turns

solid.  It is probably the only time

 

she will ever be able

to roost, & to touch the clutch of the wood

 

like a lover.  & then all the daughters will come

to understand, being summoned

 

to this spot, to pause, to be a globule of caught

breath, & the duration of it will be her

 

glory.  & true, her ultimate undoing. 

I didn’t see the ice-

 

out, or even the log let go.  The crest

of the dam is thick with today’s rush of rain

 

& sudden melt.  The river has risen, will

continue to rise.  & just nearly

 

out of sight, that branch, the tip of it

treading, the speed of the grime-white

 

foam giving it a brief aged beard, where only

a day or two ago it was all thick in

 

ice & snow,

colder then

 

& so committed to the holding, the OH!

(inhale.) holding.

After Dusting a Bookshelf

 

In Daniel Chester French's Studio

After Dusting a Bookshelf

 

Tell me how long this small chocolate

egg has been perched on Robert

Lowell’s Collected Poems ready for the find,

sitting on his spine, edging his ladies’

man eye-

 

brow?  Missed. When? Last Easter?  Easter

before?  There was a time, when he was

manic, and maybe even between

manias, that he believed

in Easter, or in its least,

its implications, in the hours & days   

following the final slump, God's lungs giving up,

the criminal forgiven, the criminal

not, & the squeeze of each between.  Jesus seeking

what I can and will say every kid seeks

from their own

father: presence.  To not have to 

say why have you

abandoned me?  It reminds me, and this is

a stretch of time and a context out of transition,

but bear with me,

to say I remember seeing,

& needing to believe in it

as a possibility, the first film I saw reeled

backwards.  Its end its beginning.

I believed I could live 

backwards.  And then,

I wanted to believe I could live

backwards.  Become

new.  But...you know, 

time.

And so.  I see this little egg, how it is

sunk to gunk under its foil.  Lowell is

impatiently unread, spine unspread, 

his skunk unborn or slunk

off, or his Nantucket dead yet

living maybe.  And speaking

of living backwards, I make myself see 

the fingers pinching this candy to place back-

ward and then for-

ward: the three to five second delight

a tongue might need to light its ennui

to strike the foil of gold, God

has it been

years sitting there? Tell me it has been

waiting unseen for at least

the length of time it takes to stumble

and be lifted, 

then sit in the confessional or the tomb

(they’re both the same, in some way,

right?)

ageless and out of date and say, almost

breathless:

Father please bless me, please, 

bless me