But today the door would not yield,
you did not answer my knocking grown into pounding
and I don’t blame you;
today I don’t recognize myself, either.
I rifle through my pockets again,
in my mind, retrace my steps to doors I have opened
before today, thinking the key would be hanging
in one of the locks of yesterday’s doors.
When I remember where the key has been left,
a sense of relief deflates me, leaves me shaking,
as I fear that you’ve changed the lock by now
because of the stranger who came to your door today,
the one who hopes to gain admittance with one yellow rose.
Fishing
Like fishermen,
we cast our prayers
into the sky, baited
with promises, praise and tears
to catch some god’s attention,
and, then, with laughable arrogance
only humans possess,
we throw answered prayers
back into the sky
in hope of hooking a bigger fish
with our next cast.
Fish
He feels her eyes baiting him
as he leans against the car door,
thinking of fishing
as the scenery swims by.
Nothing she dangles
lures him out of deep water;
swimming around the minnow,
he refuses to bite,
afraid of being hooked, netted,
pulled into the suffocating atmosphere
inside the closed car,
though inside his silence
he is more afraid of the day
she puts away her lures.
Farm Girl
I dreamed I’d marry a farm boy
with a hay baler’s shoulders
and a milker’s soft hands.
But my farm boy says he’s had enough
of milk cows running his life;
he talks about Minneapolis,
says that’s where the money is,
so he’s gone away to college,
plowing straight for an MBA.
My course is undecided.
It All
(For Michelle)
Sometimes it seems
her whole life has been one long ride
in the back seat of a car
traveling back and forth on this same highway;
and even now that she has a driver’s license,
this two-lane highway beside the lake
is still the only road,
and it goes nowhere
she hasn’t been ten thousand times.
She’s bored by the curves of asphalt
she knows by heart,
the canyon walls of pine and spruce
that feed a claustrophobia in her soul.
Even the big blue lake that never shuts up,
its shimmering surface and far horizon
is a wall she can see through, but has no door.
She can’t wait to get away
to It All,
the place the tourists come here
to get away from.
She’d settle for Duluth, finish high school there,
and then it’s off to Vegas, baby,
where, she’s heard, even a waitress
can pull down forty Gs easy
with a little cleavage and a smile,
like her friend’s sister is doing.
Two more years and she’s outta here,
unaware, at sixteen
that we build walls and fences,
draw boundaries and borders to surround ourselves
no matter where we are on the map we draw of our lives.
Between the Lines
On the corner of the envelope
her return address—
Toyota Corolla, New Mexico,
tells me that though not homeless,
she’s on the road,
between adobe homes
in Albuquerque and Las Cruces.
She writes of making beer,
growing hops in flower pots,
finding work in a microbrewery
as a master brewer’s apprentice.
she thinks she should settle on something
and why shouldn’t that something be beer?
She writes that her lover’s staying in Las Cruces,
working in a Barnes and Noble
while she and Peter, their big brown dog,
will move in with a new friend,
a woman with a Pomeranian,
a front porch and a garden,
the roads being congested with moving hearts.
Homeless in Duluth
I wish my ears
were big as elephant ears,
huge elephant ears
made of wool and flannel,
wool on the outside to cut the wind,
flannel on the inside, soft on my skin.
I’d wrap my big wool and flannel
elephant ears all around myself
and I wouldn’t be cold tonight.
The Burden of Souls
On the highway north of Erzurum, Turkey,
migrating Kurds, traveling like gypsies,
on horseback, in ox and donkey carts
piled high with all they own;
bearded men, veiled women, shy children,
one girl carrying a rooster, walk beside this caravan,
dogs herding sheep, goats, cattle on their migration,
all captured in one black-and-white image.
I heard it said that these nomadic people
believe the camera has the power to steal their souls;
the angry expressions on the faces of the men,
hurling curses in Kurdish, confirming this.
Forty years later, I still have the picture of this caravan.
I wonder, how do I relieve myself of the burden of these souls,
the care of my own, being burdensome enough.
In Light Of
The same day
I saw a photo
of an old grandma
pushing an old grandpa
out of Sarajevo
in a wheelbarrow
my boss
bought a Lincoln Continental
about a block long
to transport
his over-the-belt belly
the twelve blocks
between his home and office.
I really didn’t feel like riding
my bike twelve miles
to work and back today.
I could’ve driven;
but I felt a need
for self-righteousness,
misplaced, though it was,
in light of an old grandma
pushing an old grandpa
out of Sarajevo
in a wheelbarrow.
The Perfect Time
Enshrouded in a cloud of snow
kicked up by a county plow
on an icy road—
it’s enough to scare the Zen into anyone,
not knowing if you’ve lived a minute
or a lifetime
inside this snowy nebula
or whether or not your tires are still on the road.
Only when you emerge
into transparent blue air, alive it seems,
and no other cars head-on in your lane,
do you think, damn, ain’t this the perfect time
to begin your life anew.
Runaway Tractor
Lennon called it instant karma,
the preacher, reaping what you sow,
the judge says actions have consequences,
some simply say shit happens.
The poet says, talk about metaphor
slappin’ your face,
kickin’ your ass,
shakin’ you awake
like your old man waking you for school;
metaphor gushing as the hose lets loose
from the tank of maple nectar,
the John Deere 2020, headed down the hill,
nobody at the wheel,
and no stoppin’ it with prayers or curses,
all because you failed to set the brake,
put the tractor in gear,
chock the wheels, front and rear.
Barn
Rusty nails
with nothing to do in old age
but soak up sun,
protrude from the weathered oak ribs
of a sway-backed old barn,
think how it would be
to be silver and useful again,
holding tight a new wooden skin
that keeps at bay the wind
whistling through this rattling skeleton,
how it would be
for the barn to be filled up again,
warm beef in its belly,
dry hay in its head.
Cowbell
The rock ’n’ roll bands
have taken all the cowbells
to add a rhythm to their sound.
Meanwhile, all the quiet cows
wander in the silent fog
with no way to be found.
One Way to Bridge a Cultural Divide
Just get an old backhoe
with a broken fan belt,
two guys,
one, an Anglo volunteer,
the other, a Hispanic mechanic,
a couple 9/16th inch open-end wrenches,
a new fan belt that doesn’t fit,
(install that one first)
and one that does.
After they scrape their knuckles on the fan,
fighting to make a belt that’s too short, work,
have them talk like men talk—
to the belt, to the fan, the bolts, the wrenches,
words like “hijo de puta”
or “son of a bitch, this fucker won’t fit”
and next thing you know
they’re talking about their families and jobs,
baseball and winter storms
and when they finally get the belt installed,
end their conversation with high fives of success
as the backhoe growls back to life.
Perspective
(Cañones, New Mexico)
A rich woman
owns two houses in Cañones,
lives in one of them a few months a year
when she can get away from her career.
She drives by rusted trailer houses,
yards full of junk that is not junk,
saved for reasons unknown,
to reach her retreat
with the view of Pedernal and Tsiping Mesa.
Villagers peek out curtained windows
as she passes by in her new car,
wondering what it must be like
to be like her,
to live in busy Chicago
where the money seems to flow
like water released into the acequia,
then come to humble Cañones
on a bumpy, rutted road
to seek quiet and peace.
The people don’t begrudge her what she has;
there have always been rich and poor,
but the irony is not lost on those
who have remained poor enough
to live in heaven all their lives,
somehow unable to leave.
Ghost Warriors
From a tribe I don’t recognize,
these people with skin pink as a dog’s belly,
climb the steps we carved in this red rock mesa
when ours was the only tongue spoken.
In those times, my tribe of farmer warriors
would not allow these intruders to pass,
spilling their blood before they reached our home.
Now we are gone as clouds that drop no rain,
our houses, even our sacred kiva crumbled by time.
Yet, the spirits of our warriors inhabit the cold wind,
raising dust that stings the eyes and soft skins
of these invaders, driving them back to the valley,
scurrying for highways and restaurants,
soft beds and churches;
while the warrior wind sings and laughs all night.
Kokopelli
The old trickster
plays his flute
all day,
all night;
the music, like wind
weaving buffalo grass,
and anyone can see,
that cat can dance, too.
Thousand-Year-Old Songs
(The music of Sharon Burch)
Her guitar strings,
the threads of a dream catcher,
gather wisps of old songs
sleeping on the wind
when her fingers begin to dance.
She sings songs
made up by a young Dineh girl
gathering dry piñon
from a waterless stream bed
a thousand years ago,
when hers was the people’s only tongue.
Dull Knife’s Blanket
What could be more honest
than Nebraska in February,
the ground barren,
cattle huddled in muddy pens,
dirty snow in ditches
and the lee of fence posts,
sandhill cranes not yet returned
to the fields along the Platte,
the sky, tattered and frayed,
sunset bloody as Dull Knife’s blanket,
dragged from Sand Creek,
left in the hills above Ft. Robinson.
Reflection on a Starry Night
Driving south on U.S. 285
between Antonito and Tres Piedras,
Van Gogh’s eyes reflect the night
in my rearview mirror.
Vincent’s in the back seat
leaning his one ear against the window;
he appears to be ill, dizzy
from watching the universe spin.
I ask if I should drive him to a clinic—
Taos isn’t far out of our way.
No. No, he says,
afraid I might become hypnotized
by what I see in his eyes,
Just watch for elk
crossing the goddamn highway.
A Place Called Ghost Ranch
Georgia O’Keefe, inscrutable, enigmatic
as some long-neglected goddess,
stares at me, unblinking, from a bookshelf,
perched there like a hunting owl.
Were I a mouse, scurrying
across the desert floor in moonlight,
I’d let her kill me if she had to
for the sake of art,
but only on the condition
she lay a cactus flower
beside my still-warm body,
before she begins painting
the skeleton she see inside me.
There is no questioning the motives
of gods, owls or artists, yet
I entreat the goddess,
as a last request,
to allow the artist to paint the sky
amethyst and indigo,
allow the owl to relentlessly ask its question,
though the answer has become irrelevant
to all but some curious poet,
not as alone as he presumed, in a library,
populated, at midnight, only by sleeping authors
on retreat at a place aptly called Ghost Ranch.
With a Nod to Georgia O’Keefe
(And the Grateful Dead)
I place scarlet begonia blossoms
in the empty eye sockets
of a sun-bleached cow’s skull,
try to capture with camera
depth, angle, slant of light,
creep of shadow, color
and whatever is color’s opposite;
making art of life and death,
as if art could take the place of breath
by scattering scarlet petals about,
already having begun to shrivel and wither.
The skull grins into the lens.
.
You Wish
He pulls up to the pump in his tan mini-van,
three screaming kids buckled in,
fills its tank and his lawn mower’s gas can,
sighs at the rumble as a Harley revs up
at the next pump over,
almost cries as a blond in black leather
wraps her hair in a red bandana,
swings her long leg over the saddle,
hooks her fingers in some dude’s belt loops,
looks right at him with eyes that say
ha, you wish!
roars out onto the highway.