“Grandpa save me tight!”
she said afterwards
Mommy had said
Stay back from the edge
She mostly listened
Her sister did
While grandpa and mommy
Pulled and strained and lifted
One three year old up
The other sat
Holding sunglasses for one half hour
Straight
But hands move when seats don’t
And sunglasses didn’t bend that way
Thank Godd only sunglasses broke
When one child listened
Yes, we’ve been here before.
The watery stampede has
Challenged the banks of the slough
The bridge support is rebuilt.
The earth below is fortified.
Not so lucky, or rebuilt
Are those in Louisiana
Coursing horsefloods overrunning
Banks, homes and schools.
I thought perhaps the floods here
Might be love. Not so
There, the destruction of
Love’s homeward trails.
The powerless (the poor) still have
To tame the horses, clean out
The stalls and stalling of
Sad powers too late
Certainly afar from places
Of hurt, from home trials,
Except perhaps re-election
(Or personal reflection).
How can whole cities clean up, clean out,
from tiny and masculine rampages
of stormy horsefloods and the cavalry of
the driving storm?
How can whole countries of people
Be left to fend off nature’s cavalry? To
Clip nature’s ability to reproduce this havoc,
A sterilization process for a herd
Of some yet unseen gathering
Equine teamed torrent…
What nation would do that
to its own people?
Or is that offering too much,
That water flooding both sides meet.
band names: horsefloods
Aldus Huxley said:
The technique of mysticism, properly practiced,
may result in the direct intuition of,
and union with, an ultimate spiritual reality that is
perceived as simultaneously beyond the self and in some ways within it.
The baby of the blue sky
Disfigured by smog clouds
Brown reflecting city lights
Wells of light gathered around
Lampposts strewn in some
Dot pattern below revealing curb and
Crosswalk. Those clouds
Flee in windy chase towards
Their brightening morning address.
Capped in brighter tones of
Rising, revealing sun. Rumors
Only that steeple and flag
Receive sun’s glow first.
Risen sun, the Other, showed
First not on our caps, but in
Our need – that baby again.
The baby of the blue sky
Disfigured by smog clouds
Brown reflecting city lights
Wells of light gathered around
Lampposts strewn in some
Dot pattern below revealing curb and
Crosswalk. Those clouds
Flee in windy chase towards
Their brightening morning address.
Capped in brighter tones of
Rising, revealing sun. Rumors
Only that steeple and flag
Receive sun’s glow first.
Risen sun, the Other, showed
First not on our caps, but in
Our need – that baby again.
After George Eliot "I remember you mother"
Dribbling honey on your dry 6:15 am wheaties
Lit by the white light of the stove.
Standing outside the spitfire,
while I changed muddy soccer clothes within.
Listening to the AM radio station play old shows,
when we drove to the post office in the dark early night.
Picking blackberries beyond the fence,
Nibbling some and feeding others to the hanging coffee tin.
Celebrating a birthday at Snoqualmie Falls Lodge,
Where the syrup is dropped from taller than you.
Standing next to me singing Beautiful Savior,
In the church your father founded in Kaizer.
Driving the car through all the back streets,
I do that too.
band names: stereo hearing, boardsun, cleanout
Waiting for mists and fog
Seasons change and spring
Mid-winter storms fall
Waters rise and rush as
Teamed horses in
Nature’s cavalry or
Wild animals coursing
The millennial canyons
Horseflood challenging banks
To escape direction
Flow out, freely roaming
Yet roaming charges apply,
And neither of us have
Insurance against damage
To our homes and
Homeward trails that
Renew our real power…
