Hikes, Hailstorms

Almost the end of June and we (me, my husband & son, Aaron) watched a wicked lightning storm last night from our front porch. Every piece of sky was changing from twilight shades of white to impenetrable black, minute by minute, and simultaneously ripped by jagged yellow electric needle-thin lines. We huddled together in awe and were startled by silly things like a poor, lost poodle who scurried up our stairs and trembled next to my ankles. Her white fox-like face emerged from the torrents of rain like a strange animal spirit and we scooped her up and kept her warm and dry in the house until the storm had passed. Aaron gathered up pieces of the inevitable hailstones like he was a boy again and placed them in the freezer side-by-side and there they sat like stoic, crooked marbles. I mourned the fact that the hail was probably decimating the tender columbines and pink wild roses, but I can't be so greedy. I have had a long spring season of them and when I searched for them today, they were still there, as sturdy as ever. In fact, poppies had sprung up around them. It was as if the chilly hail and heavy rain had unearthed them all from lazy sleep.

On Sunday, we hiked up in the park to Cub Lake. A swift five miles. Color everywhere and delightful showings like fat coyotes and marmots, mallards and one cornflower-blue bird perched on a post. Golden banner dominated the wildflowers until of course we reached the lake and then the long, wavy stems of the giant yellow pond lilies hypnotized us, the lake so clear and a dreamy green. The lilies floated independent from their pads, light spirits all.

Graceland

Last leaves linger on black fingered trees
lacing the crackled blue sky.
The waiting has begun.
Miss Thalia and her sisters,
at the beer since morning,
laze about languorously, expect
nothing.
Grampa, who helped
his own poppa plant those naked maples,
paints emptied shells for the future,
while mother fusses with her quilts again,
still. Everything so still.

Old Carl (way up there on the right, through the branches)
looks up from his fields,
listens as silence accumulates.

Only Aglaia the younger and her beau are unaware—
lost they are in a moment
of each other, entwined, they grow together.
Her mother only smiles.

There are other towns, other skies
across the mountains,
where the river Cephissus flows,
the dogs begin to howl
and crows rise on the wind.
Ceres’ harvest is done,
night approaches.
It is time
to bring the quilts inside
and dance a slow tango
making the beds.

Stoke warm fire beneath
the eternal soup, blood
red with beets, smoke-savory
herbs nearly burned in butter,
scrap-full stock
hissing silently in
fragrant welcome.

They’ll be back,
the children and the animals,
birds will sing again.
Tonight we have some
of Grampa’s old plum wine
and stories of ancient days
to keep us company.
History’s in the wind.

The dance of Euphrosyne,
off-stage, left, makes
Aphrodite smile, invites
another spring.

BLIND DATE WITH THE WOLFWOMAN

This room this glass this bed this wine,

this song of lives lived well and rested,

that look that passed between us when

I discovered you were hairy-chested.

The air was thick with lupine lust

a wave that quickly crested.

Dense fur sprang from your hands and bust

and from the snout that manifested.

Full moon through dusty keyhole white

across rare steaks we had requested

and how you fanged them with delight

while I stood back as you'd suggested.

I've thought of you only since that sharp night in bed.

Your lovemaking nip left me single-breasted.

A lunar month later, this scar throbs on my chest

and the thrill that it gives me still fills me with dread

now that the taste of my flesh has been tested.

J Diego Frey

Footsteps

Ms. Buddha’s coming
her silent rampage
of forgiveness and
tearful smiles contemplate
cookies and sin
not attending to
black crow that tears
space with pierced voice
meadowlark announces
just here and right now
I am the body hyperspace
unvoiced words reach for
you for your terminal
and your fingers and eyes
coffee revs my heart
to sing reach grasp hope
love songs to the impossible
world lit from
a universe on fire
cold and immense
inside a singular point
not dark but without
light as feathers

Poetry Is Like...

Anyone want to match the poet with the statement of poetics?

POETRY IS...

"...a partially descended testicle, embarassment, anticipation and life, all in one crouched form."

"...a big scratchy silver table and then and then jeni read and there was pizza and then JD said stuff and I got to stay up late and when I got in bed I tied the red balloon to the bed post."

"...that deja vu where I'm holding a pen but it's really a wishbone, and all I have to do is decide which verse of the world to write down, which stanza of the mind to salvage."

"...clouds of locusts licking the wind until it turns blue, the sand frozen in sea mist."

"...Lydia at four, when all things are not only possible but probable - and prime numbers have nothing and everything to do...with everything else - when stars are henry in eyes of hazel and words and phrases of cheekbones and grins and chuckles."

"...being dropped onto a charred prairie looking for love like hunger, like water, like a camel whose hump has hollowed out, and then poetry is the mirage of coming home."

Fields Marked By An Asterisk Are Required

An absolution of indifference, perched top-heavy
atop the sunken confines of a styrofoam cup.

Speak or not, breathe or not, parry the words
on the page with keen discernment, or not.

*What do you use to carry the anvil of
choice, and its furthering implications?

The flimsy whim fabric of choosing, woven.
The wind that moves breathlessly

through fall fields full of dusk and miracle
light. Sawdust leaves that collapse, cranky,

red-faced, nap blanket, dreaming in prose.

freewrite

the wind does not need the grass to answer

any more than it needs me
to love the accidental sound
it makes by passing an open window
or its amphibian skirmish across the mouth
of a hollow glass jar

it does not need me balancing
its dry winter beheading of trees
with its lesser signs, the second sources:
little creature bones scattered among the bayonette
still so elegant
and then while I sleep
wind disappears
abeyance so complete
I beg it back
even its vapid form better
than nothing

-Barbara S.