The Last Line

The Poet Imagines (She Is) the Sun

 

This is the day and I am its creator, 

Says Sun s she seems to arch—without movement,

The day faces her always--clouds cast

No shadows on her face: she sees no shadow,

But below the still water is a mirror where

Her face is reflected back to her in her

Self Illumination; it reflects her back

Again in a loop of perfect contemplation

Where she knows she is the only Sun:

Sudden joy, and she flares and again sees

Her joy, what joy looks like—like herself,

Sun in the mirror, the colors of light:

Here there are images immersed in white,

The shining Sun that knows no night.

 

The Solstice Approaches

 

Me all contrast and shaping the line:

The contrast changes; so can I,

Moving the dream around, foam

Upon the surface of the sea

Of my perceptions. Am I mystical?

So says my muse. She lies

On my skin and waits to be called.

 

There may be mud on my boots,

But I can shake it off.

There may be snakes in the garden,

But they kill the rats.

There may be repetition—-

That’s a the refrain.

 

When there is beauty in the movement

From idea to idea, ad infinitum,

That’s where the love is, lucky

As you are in the finish

Of the surface. Does it shine?

Like burnished bronze. It calls:

This is the day and I am its creator.

 

Strophe and Antistrophe

 

Until you give the thing a name, nothing’s there—

You’ll make it as you shape the word, as I do here,

Aware. I’m not telling you how to think or see

The crown of thorns formed by the tongue’s decree,

So full of pattern the pattern’s lost—

 A mark of martyrdom, a song of praise:

A paean or irregular cry—yet it can be a cloak

Or a cover, a blinding with the banal familiar. Savor

The beat of the line, stroke of the pen or key: Say,

“Crow,” and a it’s a miracle or mystery—a

Crow appears, a gift in a word from me to you.

 

The crow appeared, dipped a shoulder,

Fanned his tail, and lighted lightly on the rail.

He cocked his head at the rustle in the grass,

Hopped to the ground, a picture of green

Under black. The sun was lost in the gloss

Of his back as he nudged aside the blades

With his beak, precise and neat, then he

Turned to me his lidded eye and leapt

Away, aware that my seeing him was a dangerous

Making, he all hunger and seeking,

Me all contrast and shaping.

 

Nomenclature

Into the place where the next begins,

The Shiva in me strides to destroy

The past, dancing on light feet, on fire,

The dance of the soul with slow-moving

Limbs and lifting hair, danced each instant

To the beat of the heart, the circle a circuit.

The walls of a working brain contain it

Not—I know I’m keeping you in mystery,

Staring at you now, holding out words,

You wondering what it is, how it began:

Until you give the thing a name, nothing. 

Finding the Horizon

If you leave it be, let it be, and let it come

To the blossoming—it may change with you,

May be the morning desert full of dew,

May be the direction of your gaze, awake

In a different body, the body of your work;

At the end, then, you can touch the eye,

An instant where two senses meet:

I stand behind the sun at each setting

Into the place where the next begins.

Circular Reasoning

You may find it, and know it when you find it—I can’t tell

Where the world begins or ends, but I seek both still,

Laughing while I look, imminent failure, eminent me.

There’s that rocking horse reasoning, that situation

Of no point. It’s like the rose you want to own: cut the stem

And you kill it. It may bloom for you, open in its grief,

But it’s lost to its purpose, and you to true knowledge.

It’s a simile for time, or maybe thought. Layers on layers

Of minutes—…—what you aren’t now, you might be later,

If you leave it be, let it be, and let it come to the blossoming.

Arriving at a Conclusion

Resilient, stubborn perhaps. Instead, I blink at the brightening

Sky and the easing morning, decide to surrender. Vast at once

Within and without, I am taking it in—-a warbler’s waking

Somewhere west, behind me, unseen (both west and warbler).

I can see…something there: my mind and the reflection of birds

Sliding over the sky. There’s no excuse for indifference, you know,

Or for ignorance of the things you don’t see. Reaching for the real,

You may find it, and know it when you find it—I can’t tell. 

Morning Breakers

Coldness, and my own perceptions in the surf,

The early morning shush and hiss of sand

And the force of water. I’m staring straight

At the wave, and it will insist on breaking,

Returning. I could fight the sea, Cuchulain-like,

In my passion, an immortal act of mortal futility.

 

But love is the gull that floats beyond the breaker,

Ghost-gray on gray water, light as the morning star—

Resilient, stubborn perhaps. Instead, I blink. 

What There Is

Rending the thing in my energy,

I sit in judgment: Useful or not?

The time or no? I’ll shed no tears

For what’s not. But I will for what

Is, and I’ll seize that joy now, use

Its benediction, its true existence---

I’m shocked by the hungry ghosts

Of the past and tired of explaining.

Come to me now, sweet soaring

Vocals of the sorrowful song, sun

On my open palm, smell of gardenias,

I embrace the godless air hovering

Above the restless sea, the mist

Of the conflict between warmth,

Coldness, and my own perceptions.

The Lion, Lightening and the Monarch

 

 

I will ask no more—-there is no reason.

In the upper reaches of the eucalyptus,

In October, a monarch weakly wanders

Where coin-shaped verdigris leaves mimic

Its movements. Off to the west, mysterious

Flashes of light and a heavy storm front:

The sun goes down early today, before

Its time, and the rain will kill the butterfly:

Still, I am the lion of the moment, of the wings

And the leaves and the light—-

Rending the thing in my energy.