not stolen from Roethke

from this week in 2012  (I was 67)

  not stolen from Roethke

I know it’s an owl

he’s making it darker

You didn’t know

he could do it

I hear it hoot black

his yellow eyes pierce far

Any mouse that moves

moves silent wings to it.

notes for The Poetry Class, day 32

March 30, 1976  (I was 31)

notes for The Poetry Class, day 32 

         We did improvisational writing to guitar music from John Fahey’s

Yellow Princess album.  This lesson always works for me.  I attribute much

of the success to the music.  It seems entirely appropriate for the exercise. 

I’ve tried other records, but this was twenty-five minutes of silent attentive listening/writing.  I said if they could get into the music, its rhythms and melodies would almost dictate the words to be written.  Most found

themselves writing to the tempo of the music.  I told them not to stop to

re-read or revise.  When a thought ended or the music changed in mood,

they were to draw a line and immediately pick upon the new theme.  The key

is to remain free enough to keep up the pace.  After the piece, the remainder

of the period was for reading, sorting and revising.  I always participate,

writing along as the class writes. 

     A few examples:

The flow of the water

is the essence of the brook

turning upon the rocks

the bank, the bars of sand

hold it in your hand

to feel the cold

experience the fold

of the split foam

following its various directions

the eddies the currents

         ____________

where are the shadows

in the dark

singing songs of mourning

to the spiders as they spin

their strands of sun

to expose the phantoms

         ____________

two three four

it all goes

out some one else’s door

or scatters soundlessly about the floor

show to me the breaking shore

can’t see or hear any more

must get down to the foamy shore

break like the water upon the rocks

so if you are set to follow,

come

the world may be hollow

Kidhood

from this week in 2016  (I was 71)

                 

                  Kidhood

Skating in our socks across a polished floor

we decided what things were for

we could discover a shield

in a garbage can cover

cardboard toboggans raced down grassy hills

rocks could express many skills

We saved the age of savage kids

reinventing civilization every day

abandoning it each night

when with the bats we took flight

blindly on bikes to improve our sight

The rapidity which we matter-of-factly employ

March 28, 2001  (I was 56) 

The rapidity which we matter-of-factly employ

while jumping from the still moving car

as to run alongside to jostle the carriage

until the sprung wheel bounces back upon the track

seems but second nature and unremarkable

unless we consciously reflect upon it

after we spring back on board and settle back

into our seat and re-accelerate in our descent

Even then it seems only relatively quick

and inspired by the necessity of the moment

the kind of speed recognized only in failure

by those who stumble by the wayside

while the car careens on three wheels

or disengages completely

crashing or skidding to a halt

a momentary distraction to preoccupied witnesses

We like things to come in groups of one

March 27, 2012  (I was 67)

   

We like things to come in groups of one

one fish on the line is perfectly fine

one heart makes a valentine

We are undone wanting but one within the One

a sense of humor to exclude passion

no fabric beneath the fashion

We fear to know one and one and one are not three

but a larger One as you and I are We

Inside we know each one makes One grow

creation

March 26, 1998  (I was 53)

         creation

When no dog feels to bark

when phones are unanswered even by machine

when laughter is less than an echo

when the evangelical “Gees Us”

doesn’t do that anymore

when the silent internal voice

stops speaking

when the universe hums no wave

and nothing strives to call it music

when no tooth clicks upon another

no breath whistles

nor eye flutters

God may finally be

The remains of my mother were buried today

March 25, 2015  (I was 70)

The remains of my mother were buried today

When he became the rose she became the brier

His heart blossomed her skin toughened

When petals fell she preserved the fragrance

in the very root of her yearning soul

Intemperate times strengthened the thorn

Attempts to wrest her hold on memory

met by stinging barbs of comparison

until after years no similes were needed

staunch years brittle and worn

Leafless sixty-four springs later she rests

next to him with so much to tell

Address

March 24, 1979  (I was 34)

         Address

My country has not been able

to lead economically and righteously

We are not the conscious rich

We have not sought to make everyone wealthy

We have not loved the truth and freedom we cherish

We have killed Allende

We have set up shahs and shot down townsmen

Our personal generosities have not been official

We have sold armaments in the name of peace

I know this without reading anything radical

Our discussion of who we are is more dramatic than actual

It is easy to lead a life of parochial responsibility

It is hard to act internationally when you never leave the country

It is harder to know if governments are acting wisely

and impossible to trust them to do so

Revolutions can be trusted to supply us with corpses

and leaders who in the end are only men

Once they begin to think about it

March 23, 1998  (I was 53)

Once they begin to think about it

all the poets know

the simple common images

make the strongest symbols

and they write about the dog bark

the rain and whistle of train in the dark

the brush of the cat against the pane

and a walk in the park to keep them sane

Once they feel the pattern of the scheme

and understand the stream of consciousness

is no more than the unconsciousness of dream

the image is greater than the theme

Making the boat emerge from the fog

is not figuring the because

but merely saying it does

What drives the boat is monologue

At an eddy of the Merced River in Yosemite

March 21, 2013  (I was 68)     

At an eddy of the Merced River in Yosemite

creations of light occupy the river bottom

but they are not bright they are darknesses

that run along the illuminated stones

Squiggles of parallel worm squirms

move shoreward or spin toward center stream

across a bed where no ripples go

Water beetle forms skate on stones where no bug treads

Round black holes swell and disappear

as perhaps they do in space

Projected shadows of surface whirlpools

as are the other illusions

silhouettes of nearly invisible movement on its skin

when one great element touches another

The saxophone

March 20,2000  (I was 55)

The saxophone

held upright on its stand

could be a lavish pipe fitting

awaiting installation

under the sink of someone rich

melodious golden plumbing

to be played by breath of water

in cold staccato spurts

or a warm flow of languid notes

that everyone knows

comes straight from the eternal river

In the solarium of the Ahwahnee great room

March 19, 2011  (I was 66)

In the solarium of the Ahwahnee great room

at an oak table next to the waterfall fountain

the five great windows bathe in white

it snowed heavily last night

No matter where you’ve lived

you have not experienced the scenic intensity

of This reality

It is what makes ansel adams lower case

A laden live oak sheds weighty flakes

a sagging sugar pine turned dwarf pine

Buried boundary poles and whited wire

separate one white field from another white field

The trees are not trees

they are thick webs of white

releasing a secondary storm in the gravity and warm

The place is too public for serious thought

though passing visitors are silenced by the sight

The more private side room would be as bright

but I chose this place to occupy

the same space we made a family portrait

more than two decades of snow ago

now soaked deep as the Miwok into the valley floor

And all This not to mention the backdrop

amassed granite to glacier peak

white sheathed scarps rise to limit sky

wall away thoughts of this Japanese winter

There an ominous snow of fallout flakes

Following Everything

March 18, 1973  (I was 28)

         Following Everything

That man was present and accounted for.

And accountability was the word

and the word was held accountable.

Every morning he counted the minutes he slept,

blackened the appropriate dream bubble

and carried his card to his proper occupational component.

That man had his fantasies collected and cataloged,

every pore an electrode plugged into Circuit I.

His behavior was modified.

He was hooked into the expanding body,

one with the universal knowledge,

confidently believing the rule, Everything Follows.

Yosemite -Under the bridge

March 17, 2007  (I was 62)

   Yosemite  -Under the bridge

water sounds wash away the years

rivulets into streams into river

waterfall falls falls down sheer rock

creasing at last the stony face

the rising spires rising rising

the domes snow capped and encapsulating

the valley below the meadow the forest

the thick trunked trees trees trees

whose needles whistle then whisper

Wind plays above and behind sounds of children

Dad Dad Dad look Dad look calls

the voice of my own son twenty years ago

and I look to see him poised on a rock

in the stream about to jump to another

but waiting for another dad to look and calling

Look Dad and I look for Dad to look

thinking he’s going to make the leap anyway

and you’re going to wish you had watched

in Yosemite

from this week in 2013  (I was 68)

in Yosemite

when you see the tallest pines

swaying in the serious wind

and think their shrill whistle to be

the final call of their impending fall

do not fear  It is no Siren sound

but the exclamatory squeal of limbs

exploring the boundaries for which they are built

Eye instead the rooted ground

from which emerges the sturdy trunk

It is there you want to perceive a stillness

as stationary and steadfast answer

to querulous notions blowing above

Life ran away from me

From this week in 2017  (I was 72)

Life ran away from me

can’t honestly say

I tried to keep up

couldn’t do what it asked

to get what I wanted

not even sure what that was

I never got a good look

I’ve been out distanced

It’s not that I did nothing

but I didn’t do something

someone would know about

The generosity of the poor

generally goes unnoticed

even by the recipient of the gift

notes for The 8th Grade Poetry Class, day 29

March 14, 1976  (I was 31)

notes for The 8^th Grade Poetry Class, day 29

         We wrote composite poetry.  I asked eight students to participate

in the demonstration.  I showed the class an art print.  The volunteers

wrote a single line of an observed detail, subject matter or mood.  I

asked that the lines be read randomly, one at a time.  I transcribed them

entirely or in part to the chalk board.  With each new line there is the

challenge to form a parallel, a counterpoint, or provide workable transitions

between images and ideas.  I talked about the poem taking shape as I

erased, repositioned, shortened, elongated or otherwise worked the lines

into cohesive form.  Not all that difficult given the common inspiration and

the students’ desire to be concise and perceptive in their offerings.  I

displayed the art print again and read the assembled piece.  They were

impressed and enthused with the end result of their collective genius. 

         Groups of eight students were given individual art prints, and each

student wrote out their one-line impression eight times on separate strips

of paper.  After lines were exchanged they worked individually to arrange

revise and supplement the lines into their unique poetic version of the

material, transcribing the result into their notebooks.

Themes of a Life

March 13, 1987  (I was 42)

         Themes of a Life

   (Escape of the thrilled soul)

The themes of a life fall upon me this morning;

begun as hard phrases for ideas found in youth,

they glare through blue windshield off wet pavement

momentarily blinding me once more in the spring.

Cheap Thrills, excursions of extremism,

a few footfalls beyond the bounds of convention,

taken as regularly as medicine

to reveal the arbitrary values upon which judgments lie

until pedestrian habit becomes cynical addiction.

Battling the Demons, little evils allowed to inhabit us

because we proudly remember Hemingway had them,

and their stings were so innocuous.

Age begins to understand persistence

and respect has made the little devils grow.

Dreams of Flying, any dreams really

that linger into the morning and take possession,

extending their insistent reality upon the dreamer’s conscious actions.

Dreams are the art of the soul, and to dream of flying

is undeniably to fly for the space of the dream, perhaps beyond.

Spring Training in the Bush

March 12, 1974  (I was 29)

   Spring Training in the Bush

That man in Canada did not die

With the bayonet at his throat

He turned and ran weaponless

Sliding across the border like stealing second

We’ve been hitless ever since

Still we blame the stranded runner

Most of our hitters got drafted

Some signed heavy contracts

How many outs we got?

Still no score

Maybe we could’ve won with more like him

Bunt and run men

Give him the sign

In the end it don’t matter whether you struck out

Or whether you were thrown out at home

Because I know where the highway goes

March 11, 2012  (I was 67)

Because I know where the highway goes

   (You said it doesn’t go your way)

I take the off roads the side roads

   the back roads the inroads

   skirting private property

   along the stream through the canyon

   the way the Pony Express would gallop

   where silent films were made

   at the little church in the vale

   up into the woods of Kilkare

   gang of Robin Hood’s still there

   …He now owns a stable of thoroughbreds

      he races in a seasonal tournament…

But I digress

   (I said I know where the highway goes)

   from the route up the trail to the path

   and rocky outcrop from which the single sound

   may be heard or imagined

   like a country club with no members

   like understandings with no miss

   like a muse that has no meant

   Expressed from the expressway

   turned from the turnpike through with the throughway

   avoiding the avenue of whatever whichway

   unfashionable on the boulevard

   to meander among melancholy reflections

   Somewhere just off where the highway ends

   must be somewhere near your way

Ancient history certainly began

from this week in 2013  (I was 68)

Ancient history certainly began

twenty years before my birth

Half century before that inhabited

only by the dead buried in books

Before that only myths

who rode on beasts or borne by sail

to lands and societies unknown

And seasons were what seasons meant to be

created by the greater astronomy

We were the objects not the subject

of such incomprehensible responsibility

notes for The 8th Grade Poetry Class, day 19

March 9, 1976  (I was 31)

notes for The 8^th Grade Poetry Class, day 19

         I told them we had reached a plateau, everything up to now was,

more or less, introduction.  We were beginning to push out to new levels

of understanding poetic concepts.  I reminded them how many came in

thinking poetry was just writing in rhyme.  I compared rhyme to a

carpenter’s hammer, useful, but not the only tool in the box.  I stretched

the comparison to other carpentry tools.  We talked alliteration, simile,

metaphor and personification.  We talked tongue twisters.  I made a

distinction between playing with tools and building a house, a bird house.

I asked how many had written in their notebooks in the past week.

         Bells rang. A voice over the intercom, “This is a disaster drill.”  We

assumed duck and cover position along walls away from windows.  We

sat in darkness and listened to the voice tell us what we would do if

this were an earthquake or other disaster.  We were told to evacuate,

and we assembled outside at our designated area until the all-clear bell. The

disaster was over in eight minutes.  

         We talked about chaos, eternity, and measuring the universe. 

Eventually we got back to Margaret Chilton’s poem “Premonitions.”  They

identified metaphors, similes, alliterations and personifications.  It did not

take them long to get into the poem nor to appreciate the humor.