I climbed the hills last Tuesday knowing

 

September 17, 2001  (I was 56)

 

I climbed the hills last Tuesday knowing

the airplane drone was gone from aum,

a profound absence in a brief lifetime.

I took undistracted notice of the birds.

I was occupied by the silence.

It has long been my habit to send

a prayer of simple recognition to souls

I happen to notice in aircraft overhead.

This sky was a pure blue of emptiness.

 

It was not the sky of the new world,

it was the heaven between worlds.

Again we lost an innocence

we did not know we had;

something we’ve done many times.

Tomorrow would be the first sky

to dawn upon an unfortunate century

where warring gods prove their fallibility,

or where man reflects the gold of daylight.

Reclining Lady of Six-Eighty (6)

 

August 31

 

   Reclining Lady of Six-Eighty  (6)*

In the time of the old nations

people knew the pantheistic landscape

The beings of hills and stream were seen

the scope of each domain was understood

 

The movement of the day and year played

against the patience of oak or rock

and the great beings issued powers

that moved the sky and earth

 

The obvious was not to be ignored

Phenomenal relationships were perceived

The truest were as direct as cold breath

blown by North Wind through the canyon

 

Now folklore is impractical and vague

We see more subtle seismic implications

when she awakens to stir in her bed

and runs her fingers through her hair

 

*From a series written from 1998-2001 (I was 53-56)

Never Again

 

August 4, 2001  (I was 56)

 

                  Never Again

Upon hearing that Senator Tom Daschle’s father

lost a lifetime of his paintings in a fire.

 

Never again.

The force that loaded hues from the palette

then carried the brush across the vision to the canvas

was gone.

The rightness of the stroke

applied in unconscious confidence

to make the unseen visible,

lost in a moment’s speculative hesitation.

The fire consumed the house.

The first thought after the panic,

“Everyone’s alive,”

was not quite true.

A hundred creations that counted the years

of gifts of self to the self

were reduced to funereal ash.

“Only things,” the brave perspective

offered to others measuring their losses.

But hesitation grew from speculation

of impermanence to indifference

for gifts to the self of the self.

The fire consumed the house.

Never again color brushed against vision;

everyone alive, only things.

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

 

(A Week Later...)

 

September 17, 2001  (I was 56)

 

              (A Week Later...)     

I climbed the hills last Tuesday knowing

the airplane drone was gone from aum,

a profound absence in a brief lifetime.

I took undistracted notice of the birds.

I was occupied by the silence.

It has long been my habit to send

a prayer of simple recognition to souls

I happen to notice in aircraft overhead.

This sky was a pure blue of emptiness.

 

It was not the sky of the new world,

it was the heaven between worlds.

Again we lost an innocence

we did not know we had;

something we’ve done many times.

Tomorrow would be the first sky

to dawn upon an unfortunate century

where warring gods prove their fallibility,

or where man reflects the gold of daylight.

Reclining Lady of Six-Eighty (6)

 

August 31

 

   Reclining Lady of Six-Eighty  (6)*

In the time of the old nations

people knew the pantheistic landscape

The beings of hills and stream were seen

the scope of each domain was understood

 

The movement of the day and year played

against the patience of oak or rock

and the great beings issued powers

that moved the sky and earth

 

The obvious was not to be ignored

Phenomenal relationships were perceived

The truest were as direct as cold breath

blown by North Wind through the canyon

 

Now folklore is impractical and vague

We see more subtle seismic implications

when she awakens to stir in her bed

and runs her fingers through her hair

 

*From a series written from 1998-2001 (I was 53-56)

Reclining Lady of Six-Eighty (5)

 

August 30

 

   Reclining Lady of Six-Eighty  (5)*

The days she remains invisible

behind walls of gray air

something substantial in me is obliterated

patched over with vague recollection

 

More real then is every daily revelation

of her form whether in pastel silhouette

or stark as Cezanne against the blue

and more remarkable in her vital reality

 

And the constant passive security posed

from turned face and breast

to open hips and rising thighs

unique in every light

 

causes me to consider her dreams

to be the fabric of the dawn

into which I move

and against which I disappear

 

*From a series written from 1998-2001 (I was 53-56)

Reclining Lady of Six-Eighty (4)

 

August 29

 

   Reclining Lady of Six-Eighty  (4)*

I walked the ridge trail olive groves

above the southern access to the hills

climbed deer and critter paths

through the oaks to summit roads

 

my point of view now more western,

more elevated; turkey vultures overhead

Afternoon sun colored but did not warm

the wind blowing my vision eastward

 

Pieces lay in colored cubes of her

abstractions on a newly ordered horizon

separate recognizable her parts

to be reconsidered there from here

 

This old beauty anew again

the possibility of always fresh

she provides in a smile I assume

is there but still have not seen

 

*From a series written from 1998-2001 (I was 53-56)

Reclining Lady of Six-Eighty (3)

 

August 28

 

   Reclining Lady of Six-Eighty  (3)*

There have been mornings of firm intent

when I have anticipated the moment

and lost myself in premature reverie

As I approach her she is my focus

 

I analyze the distance between us

the color and texture of the air

the tone of the intervening time

whose notes I count off one by one

 

By some autonomic breach of perception

I discern the drift of banal traffic

conversing loudly across my lane

and I maneuver around the thought

 

Or some cleverness plays my attention

a momentary implication looms large

Then I sense the wrong light passing

and immediately know I’ve missed her

 

*From a series written from 1998-2001 (I was 53-56)

Reclining Lady of Six-Eighty (2)

 

August 27 

 

   Reclining Lady of Six-Eighty  (2)*

The fabric of the canopy overhead

and lie of bed clothes around her

varies with the morning weather

and colored light dawning over her knees

 

I have turned to look upon her hidden

under a silvered veil of sheet

forehead, shoulder, knees in silhouette

slumbering in fog of sleep

 

And I moved that morning in sleepy fog

about my business with underlying hint

of familiar form beneath subliminal cloud

and rounded edges of reality

 

The perfunctory memory of the hand

working routine daily tasks

frees the mind to drift in search

of a familiar naked form

 

*From a series written from 1998-2001 (I was 53-56)

Reclining Lady of Six-Eighty (1)

 

August 26

  

   Reclining Lady of Six-Eighty  (1)*

Each morning the lady reclines

at the same angle of repose,

as I roll around the same curve

to bring her into view

 

I first see the left rear profile of her head

turned away from me in the pillow,

a curl on her forehead,

eyelash, tip of nose, satin cheek to chin

 

I turn upon her shoulder,

soft quarter of her breast

under which left hand has come to rest,

and other lies beneath, fingers over navel

 

The foliage suggestion of discreet bush

lies beneath and between thighs

which rise to smooth angular knees,

then pleasing drop of calf to feet

tucked under a verdant sheet

 

* From a series written from 1998-2001 (I was 53-56)

Never Again

August 4, 2001  (I was 56)

 

                  Never Again

Upon hearing that Senator Tom Daschle’s father

lost a lifetime of his paintings in a fire.

 

Never again.

The force that loaded hues from the palette

then carried the brush across the vision to the canvas

was gone.

The rightness of the stroke

applied in unconscious confidence

to make the unseen visible,

lost in a moment’s speculative hesitation.

The fire consumed the house.

The first thought after the panic,

“Everyone’s alive,”

was not quite true.

A hundred creations that counted the years

of gifts of self to the self

were reduced to funereal ash.

“Only things,” the brave perspective

offered to others measuring their losses.

But hesitation grew from speculation

of impermanence to indifference

for gifts to the self of the self.

The fire consumed the house.

Never again color brushed against vision;

everyone alive, only things.

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

I climbed the hills last Tuesday knowing

September 17, 2001  (I was 56)

I climbed the hills last Tuesday knowing

the airplane drone was gone from aum,

a profound absence in a brief lifetime.

I took undistracted notice of the birds.

I was occupied by the silence.

It has long been my habit to send

a prayer of simple recognition to souls

I happen to notice in aircraft overhead.

This sky was a pure blue of emptiness.

It was not the sky of the new world,

it was the heaven between worlds.

Again we lost an innocence

we did not know we had;

something we’ve done many times.

Tomorrow would be the first sky

to dawn upon an unfortunate century

where warring gods prove their fallibility,

or where man reflects the gold of daylight.

Never Again

August 4, 2001  (I was 56)

                        Never Again

Upon hearing that Senator Tom Daschle’s father

lost a lifetime of his paintings in a fire.

Never again.

The force that loaded hues from the palette

then carried the brush across the vision to the canvas

was gone.

The rightness of the stroke

applied in unconscious confidence

to make the unseen visible,

lost in a moment’s speculative hesitation.

The fire consumed the house.

The first thought after the panic,

“Everyone’s alive,”

was not quite true.

A hundred creations that counted the years

of gifts of self to the self

were reduced to funereal ash.

“Only things,” the brave perspective

offered to others measuring their losses.

But hesitation grew from speculation

of impermanence to indifference

for gifts to the self of the self.

The fire consumed the house.

Never again color brushed against vision;

everyone alive, only things.

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