IN THE RIGGING: TEARS BEGAN TO FALL

IN THE RIGGING: TEARS BEGAN TO FALL

We were near Cinfuego waiting for pirates

We had been there for over two hundred years.

The stars had migrated and had chosen

Other places they wanted to visit.

We have been here previously. We had

See the constellations form and reform

Many times.  We have been to other worlds

It was indeed the sea that carried us there. 

They had propped the king in a corner

But he had been there so long

He looked like a pile of sticks

With some bits of cloth.

Sometimes the sea would turn 

Bright yellow as if the light

Came from within, the wave

Tops glowing.  At other times

Even in the night, the entire

Sea was a violet as if rubbed

To a burnish and then the next

Moment, opal, perfect opal.

We would take to the high

Rigging to see this. It was the sea.

They had me on gallants working all

The way to the Moonraker. 

Sometimes men seemed to be 

Walking in the surface of the water.

They were not ghosts.  They were men.

We lived in rooms filled with sand.

The tide came in blistering the sand.

We were above the wave line among

The lemon trees.  The sands looked black.

The water sounded pleasing.  The king 

Surely would return from that pile of sticks.

Surely he would return.  These seas shall

Remain unknown forever, mysterious and clear.

The clock weaving in and out of what we choose

To call dreams only because we are

Old and cannot but be the dreamer.

It seems a fair, fair wind follows.

A clear water indeed.  We know no longing.

We are captured by the History of

The Night Borges spoke of, our eyes

Still scanning the horizon, should there

Be a place where we might land.

HORSE LANGUAGE

His family had been red and wore

The clouded suits worn by those

Who could not mark the truth

With words but bore it rather

In the patterns of colors on their horses

They speak by gathering groups of these

Beautiful horses into certain configurations.

They run them past one another

Changing their order on every run so that

The patterns are read differently

Each time.  Some are so skilled

That they can write music with the horses.

When we came to them the voyages

Had been going on for quite some time.

Things were being traded that would

Not be understood for many, many years.

We asked which way the children

Had gone, what they had carried

With them and their ages.

It took two full days of horse

Display for that information to be conveyed.

We have been on the trails now

For over four months.  Everything

Seems just beyond our understanding,

Slightly out of reach.  It is very

much like mining a poem to get

Any information.  In the evenings 

We sit and watch the light depart.

We listen for hoofbeats  through the dark,

The cries of wolf-like creatures,

Flames of red eyes circling our

Campfires, sure that we will fail

To find the children.

We find ourselves forgetting their names,

How we became separated,

Why we speak the way we do today.

WHAT WE WANT

WHAT WE WANT

To hear the voice tell us stories.

The heart went questing with true

Love and its page Ardent Desire.

To know this is true, as true

As clouds lifting against the 

Horizon, building higher than ideas.

Oh please tell us the truth.

Tell us about Mister Death

And his lovely dances full of leaps,

Full of daring and challenges.

The color of the sky at twilight.

When we wait at night for the

Lights to quit and make soft

Cloaks around our thoughts

So we may sleep.  Children,

Families, lovers and deer feeding

Beside streams full of moonlight.

Let us stand here together.

I will hold you to me and kiss

Your lips.  I will tell you and you

Will tell me.  We will be able to see

The silver of enchanted light through

The trees.   We will agree that our lives

Shall always have this sheen about them.

Far to the North, just before the snows

Begin to own everything for months

At a time we hear the voices again.

Cantatas that overcome death, leave

Us choruses swelling with prayers,

Rejoicing beyond measure, the seasons

So full we wash in them and they flow

Over silken skin as clouds lifting

Against the horizon, building higher than ideas.

THE PRESENT

THE PRESENT

They broke the early edge of morning,

Filling the positions of the day almost

Immediately.  Great platoons of moments

Forming ranks, files, minute by minute,

Hour by hour.  There were so many

Ready to greet the dawn that it became

Impossible to predict what might occur

Between morning and evening.  Love

Songs rose spontaneously from myriad

Places, decisions and resolutions assembled,

Sure of success.  It was as if everything

That could happen on any given day

Would happen today for certain.

This went on every morning, no matter

What; Winter, Summer, Spring and Fall,

A seemingly endless parade.  Surely there

Must be something to all this activity.

We stood on the hilltops watching.

We looked from out our windows.

We greeted one another and discussed

Every event as it unfolded itself.  Each

thing seemed new. We hardly noticed

How it all worked until it became

Necessary to remember where we

Were and what was happening to us.

By then our joy had moved to the children.

We continued this way for an indeterminate

Amount of time and then it was over.

At first this seemed strange.  Later we

Involved ourselves in the making of it.

We became the things we observed.

I WOULD MAKE NOISES DEEP

I WOULD MAKE NOISES DEEP

In my throat that sounded

So unlike anything I knew

That I would scare myself.

I became ceremony in sound.

A whirl of phlegm, crackling

And sputtering up from the

Rooms I guard against time

And her dancing princesses.

A quaking, as if a bear suddenly

Came into the room on hind

Legs and performed the crushing

Of an arm as if it were a

Dance and she the music.

Now, as autumn pushes clouds

Ahead of itself with a yard

Full of leaves, I hear these

Same sounds again issue

From their scraping across

The drive and think them

A familiar music, something

Treasured, like a Nocturne by

Chopin remembered by the fingers

Long after the mind has forgotten

The specificity of the notes and rests.

It is a rustling of lace

In a room draped with silences.

A SAILORS DREAM

A SAILOR’S DREAM

I have plans for you and have

The names of ships you may board

That will take you to islands, to lands

Where strange things, there the Bong tree

Grows or fairies might gather

By fires at night and warm the

Long ropes of their noses, they do,

And warm the long ropes of their noses.

I will teach you to spell, to light

Saint Elmo’s fire on the top of the mast

And loose it from your mouth

To frighten the birds of the far lands

Who will cluster in toward you

To hear your stories,  If you 

Come to the places I’d lead you,

If you’ll sail on the ships of the night.

Their voices will rise and mix

With the chorus that rides

From the waves to the sky.  There are

Legions that dwell in the depths

Of my body and serve the

Legends of men.  Yes, they do,

They enhance all the legends of men.

And yes, I will go, for my breath

Has the salt as the eye of the dawn

Is blood red and I’ll notch

My footsteps to the heave of the decks

And I’ll sail on forever and then some.

I’ll sail us on through the doors of the night,

You shall see me as a ghost on fogged mornings.  

I’ll be sailing us on through the doors of the night.

Let this dream of the sea be your warning. 

THE LITTLE STAR OF CHINA

THE LITTLE STAR OF CHINA

The one with the broken mouth.

The one who used to put her hands

In the water, lift them  back to her mouth,

Speak into it and put it back in the stream.

She was the one.  We saw her many times.

Once she was a hill just outside of a small town.

Once she was a squabble of birds in a tree.

It was summer. It was almost dark, but it was her.

Those bay colored horses with the darker spots

On their sides and their perfect eyes.

We saw them standing in the moonlight.

There was barely a breeze.  We were waiting.

It was her, no doubt.  She was the one.

It was her too that time we were driving

Through the jungle at night, trying to get

Matt to a hospital.  He had mangled his leg

While cutting wood.  It was a bad cut.

We passed about a half mile wide fire

That ran almost to the edge of the road.

We knew it was her.  Ramon said, “it’s her.”

Once there was a ship leaving the harbor,

Easing through the morning mist.  The trees

On the far side of the river, all pink and wonder.

It groaned and creaked and moved into the river.

She was called The Little Star of China.