and celebratory rockstacks
to be enjoyed by all
Five silver spoons
(my great-grandmother's)
filled with and spilling honey
at the seep for bees
And the kittens — a year old now!
have a new white ribbon
dangling from the doorknob
There's one fluttering on the ridge as well
which might capture the bobcat's gaze
Under the boundary tree
for the coyote I've left
my best, trickiest riddle
And there are ten well-washed
grapes on the neighbor's property
for the raccoon
with a line of cat food showing the way
The wild cherries, goosefoot, ironwood
hickory, ash, witch hazel, well
there are as many hugs as can be arranged
yellow buckeye, beech, maple
one hundred fifteen thousand heartbeats of gratitude
today especially
for winter heat, green summer shade
and the deep, fragrant
breath of the woods
And finally
the deer receive forgiveness
for eating my blueberries;
next spring I will plant more
V. Maps of Light
Clearing the Seep
Late in the afternoon I went out to clear the clots of leaves from the seep, where it threads down the mountain into the pool we built for it not far from the house.
Snow is coming in tonight but right now the sun has a golden ferocity that calls for a surge of deep-hearted work. I find the round-point shovel, then dig through the box for my yellow deerskin gloves, the ones that are so agreeable and supple, and fit me better than they do the men I live with. In the clearing below the house the crows are arguing amiably.
Heading out of the shed my boots crunch on muddy gravel; tomorrow it will be icy and treacherous. The wind is already churning through the trees like a kettle coming to boil. But for now there is sharp pleasure in dragging away the matted slags of black and ochre leaves until I can see the last of the light glitter off the water as it trickles down.
I dredge the leaves out of the pool, then sweep the muddied water along the channel with my shovel until it finally tips past and slips down the mountain, all surge and tumble and perfect satisfaction. I watch until my ears begin to burn with cold.
Sometimes your path is so clear and keen it aches. Sometimes — just for a moment — your way is bright as molten copper burning its way down, reflecting the cup of the world as it runs. Even the earth is inflamed and swept along.
Back at the shed I put away my shovel, then gather up an armload of wood to build a fire for the night. It’s dark inside now, but I do not yet want to turn on a light.
To Life
When light floods down
in the temple of the woods
there is work:
bright chemistry of sugars
simmered, bloomed, perfected
freely passed and shared
stem to root
from the holy cup
swallowed
in great draughts
And the leaves say:
let us drink together
let us dry the cup
may you be delivered to life
The tree is blind to one color
which is laid aside
trundled up to the roof
tipped out the windows
kept out of the way
of the busy kitchen and
long table of the leaf
How blessed we are that green
— sage, emerald, viridian, pine
is of no use to the tulip poplar
shagbark hickory or yellow buckeye
Now breathe and
bathe in the sanctuary of green
birch and basswood
and love well the gift
And the people say:
let us drink together
let us dry the cup
may you be delivered to life
Spider Flight
Sixty miles out to sea Darwin
looked skyward and saw silver
filaments fringing every
rope aboard the ship
Spiders fly because they are pushed
Not wind
but charge propels them aloft
Every day along the edges of the planet
four hundred thousand storms
brew and prowl, crackling
Skyships amass
thin fire strikes and
sleet hisses down
A spider turns her gaze to the earth
stands on tiptoe
and spins up a thread
Electric stormjuice squeals
and streams
Ions careen earthward
are repelled and
Eight delicate feet
hundreds of thousands of tiny contacts
with grass, twigs, roofs of the world
Vanish
Are bounced
into green winds
to fly
toward unknown lands
Ode to Brown
cinnamon, nutmeg, loam, dusk
beans, molasses, gingerbread
oatmeal, rye bread, rolling pin
toasted sesame seeds
a weathered wooden boat, jump rope, apple butter
old paperbacks crumbling in the attic
my father’s boots
mushrooms, pecans, homemade bread
dried cornhusk dolls we brought home from the Ozarks
a hummingbird nest, tiger’s eye
the prickly sweetgum balls, stepped on barefoot
rotted plums from the neighbor’s tree
nightcrawlers, dried blood, Coca-Cola in glass bottles
a pond the cows have been in
gravy, biscuits, pralines
the wren who sat on my grandpa’s shoulder
my mother’s Volkswagen Rabbit, first car I ever drove
my worn-out basketball
hot tea in Mussie’s Haviland china,
Ohio River Flood of 1937 and
the sepia-toned photos of people who lived and loved through world wars
the smooth skin of my grandaddy’s housemaid,
and our last president
the kitchen carpet at Graceland the day Elvis died
empty locust shells we hung in our hair
rough speckled muscadines slowly covering the abandoned house in the woods
round pebbles at the bottom of the Spring river, paddles, faded life jackets
the tarp draped over the canoe that we slept under
crickets
my carved cherry bed
the metal bookcase in my room,
with all my Nancy Drews
my little sister’s chifforobe
Bonnie Bell lip gloss in Tootsie Roll flavor
root beer barrels, Milk Duds, Twix bars at Halloween
lizards, snakes, salamanders
School shoes, hush puppies, peanut butter
Nutty Bars cost a quarter in the lunchroom
the ribbon in my Heavy Metal cassette tape, re-wound with a No. 2 pencil
my boyfriend’s thick, wavy hair
Stuck
once I wandered
a secret cave which sighed and
stirred the hair on my neck
I found the cave because I wandered
yet
in all the wide world
there is a strange phenomenon
in which I allow a single pebble —
any random small-focus point, really
to not only serve as editor and critic
but also a sucking black hole
a lockup
I focus on this and nothing else
in all the wide world I allow
one small
— cannot even name
to decide what I am to do
where I will go
what I may or may not express
I have only the tiniest cell in which to pace
and I have gone there myself and
infuriated
locked myself in
this is how wandering ends
what we do to ourselves
this is how we miss
the secret caves in the woods
Thresholds
This may happen to you:
You may have an orderly house built in your heart, yet be unexpectedly, powerfully distracted by thresholds.
Doorways shine so hot and blue I have to shut my eyes and turn away.
Or go out, of course.
If you go, you’ll find yourself dropping your hands and saying “I just don’t know,” then listening to the sometimes ridiculous, often profound secrets the water has to share. You’ll miss meetings because of this, and have no excuse.
You might be taught by the most unsavory birds, and become known as a lover of weeds.
After a while there won’t be much left to recommend you any more, no clarity or cleverness. You’ll be a fool who lingers on the fringes of burnt places and ruins. You will curse and bow in the rain and stand amid an argument of winds. The land will tease and trick you. But if you take off your shoes, it will tolerate your feet.
You’ll be an odd friend to an unpredictable power.
It will be more than this. It will be enough.
On the Last Small Bouquet of Gentian and Boneset
I had saved this for you these past weeks
or perhaps for myself
Thinking, there may not be any more this season
or the next
Then today on my walk there were
fragrant mosses in citrine and jade and amber
leaves with their thousand songs
and burning filaments of light
quilting the surface of the creek
This is how we become who we were meant to be
Not by clinging to a few bright gifts
but by letting go and having them all
Riptide
dreamt I was
standing on the beach when
a wave reared up
and dragged me impossibly
out to sea
breathless
a woman gulped my name
roar of a towering whitecap
coming
and — !
knew what to do
slipped under
satin black leagues beneath
terrible sharp-toothed birds of the deep
howled but
fed them stones and stones
waited
for the wave to thunder past
then winded
aligning my salt-light body with the shore
began
thinking of book signatures, bees, woodfires
you know what to do
wrap your fear in stones
angle toward the shore
the brine in your blood
knows what to do
There Will Be Days
There will be days during which your heart feels like an abandoned house at the end of a long gravel road.
You shouldn’t go there, but you do, furtively. Anxiously. You have no business there, but the trash and detritus of squatters — a mattress, empty tins, worse — these call for a witness.
What you don’t expect, of course, is love.
To be ambushed, laid low, crushed to the grass by the intoxicating scent of muscadines growing wild.
The clicking (what? what?) of your stuttering heart — or the cicadas which have climbed out of the dirt after seven years in the grave, croaking in astonishment.
This is the beginning of grief, this place of shattered glass and exposed boards.
Or the awakening of love? Is that it?
So hard to distinguish between them, and possibly not worth the effort.
The Same House
Does the steadfast root tell the leaf
Be still and do not pull so in the wind!
The leaf shivers and laughs
at the root's imperious command
She chortles in response
You, root! Why don't you bump and sail the sky
like I do?
The tree loves them both and more
You, leaf, will visit your older sister
after the throat of the snow carries you down
and the wild wood conveys you
piece by piece
vein and flame
into the bright singing under
We live in the same house but
we will all be changed
Measured
Today I added myself to a flash flood warning
a mudslide, and thirty sheets of honeycomb
pressed into frames.
I can’t open the hives in this downpour but flowed onto
a page of washi and a handwritten poem.
I became a cherry tree two hugs wide
dying and holding on,
the ash leaning above the seep,
and five black locust skeletons streaked with rain.
Silvering into mist I pooled among the pines
with three other women whose sons all suffered.
You and I want the same things:
To know the worst and be free of it.
To sustain the terrible wounds and still sleep like a wolf
with her nose on her paws.
To remember our infants with their peony heads.
We must break ourselves into equal birds,
into seven shining stones in shades of slate
and jet and jade
ten little eggs
four promises
reduced in the end
to a galaxy with a thousand suns
falling into our hands,
still burning.
Begin Again
I was satisfied with grocery-store bouquets until I discovered wildflowers. Now I know how the strong, dappled leaves of hepatica live through the winter, then die in the spring snow to make way for one perfect bloom with the sheen of a pearl.
The suburb kept me until I saw a spotted thrush return each afternoon to the same mountain meadow, singing until robins filled the long grasses to feed.
Now amid yellow buckeye, trillium, trout lily, and the parliaments of crows… The way creek song changes in pitch after a rain? I can never go back.
The threads you painstakingly knot together each day unravel. Holding lovers, molding sons, repairing and hoping. When you are sewing the world together there are more broken pieces than whole.
There will come a time when you unhunch and unfold your aching hands. Stand on the worn wooden boards, the cold cement stoop, a patch of dirt — maybe a little grass. Just stand until you remember the ground will support you.
Stand for a month or four years.
The wild turkeys will feed on wood violets while you wait, and the birches will raise your children. Drink your tea, the towhee will urge.
Then a honeybee needs to be rescued from the seep, and you will need to find a twig. Take your time, this is a test. This is how you will begin again.