THE ESSENTIALS OF THE IDYLL

Artus Scheiner

THE ESSENTIALS OF THE IDYLL

It is sweetest right next to the sky.

Just before you cross the line.

The air is limpid.

The sea has forgotten

About waves for a few hours.

Words have tracks

As we talk.  They look

Like tiny wrens, full of

Close shadings, a bright beak

Flashes; hard to see when

We’re in the woods.

Nothing has a surface.

We are inside of everything.

I was hoping you wouldn’t

Get this far with this poem.

I was hoping the images would

Continue on their own and make

A story for you, elicit a sensation

That would capture you,

Provide some transportation.

Instead, here I am alone

With you, amazed at the color

Of the sky, the way the breeze tricks

It’s way through Summer,

The kind of quiet, working

Like this precipitates.

Before you go, one Summer when

I was about eight years old,

My father stopped the car as dark 

Was coming.  While the children and

my mother watched, he walked into a

Small woods near Lake Ontario

To catch fireflies for us to see up close.

The woods were a great flashing field

Filled with millions of lights, millions.

I have never seen anything like that

Evening ever since then, until now.

THE SWARMING

It is nice to see that 12 people follow this site.  Hello friends.

THE SWARMING

The jungle was already torn when we arrived.

One could see into the gash for an extremely

Long way.  It looked like an ancient ritual

Might look where the celebrant reached into

The chest of the victim and pulled the heart,

Still beating, from the body and held it high

For all to see.

The birds were the first to exit the cover.

Their cries were a voluble explosions,

Chatter and freakish noises that permeated

The air and then the skin, flooding the heart

With the anguish of its sounds.

The rainbows of feathers had no apparent

Order.  There was only a cacophony of color.

No flocks here.  Only terribly frightened birds

Swirling from the deepest parts of the jungle.

We retreated to our vehicles when the insects

Flowed from the great forest.  It was too much 

To absorb; the sounds, the metallic voices, 

The unmistakable hum of millions upon millions 

Of insects pouring through the opening and making

Tsunami as they coursed across the land.  We were unable

To even see anything from our cars, so covered they were

With the seething bodies of endless tiny creatures.

The washed over us and rejoined the jungle behind us.

The greater animals followed not concerned at all

That we were there.  The sullen coughs and roars,

The screams and calling of all species filing past,

Not intending harm, just moving, moving to leave

This sorry intrusion into another world, not theirs,

Not ours.

We were to follow them.  As they passed we started

Our engines and formed a close pack, growling and

Sliding on the boggy ground.  They hadn’t seen 

The last of us.  We were witness to what they did.

We would return, all of us.  All of us. The planet still

Whirling as if directed by some mad force intent

On telling each of us how to behave, what to do.

THE PORCH IN MIDSUMMER (world and idea)

THE PORCH IN MIDSUMMER

(world & idea )

A jar full of red flowers.

It was the way light

Moved across them but 

Oh, the time was dead

And oh, the seeing was dead

And oh, there was no way

Left to focus and Oh, what

Was there to say coming

Home?  “I could not see

The red flowers and now

This camera too is broken

And I wonder if we can see

Anything, anymore.”  All that

Was left took years to pull

Itself together, slightly out

Of focus, slightly overburdened

With the marks paint uses

To describe light, it sits there,

A beautiful thing, arcing

This way and that, between

What was and is, between words

And image, between world and ideas.

THE NIGHT TOUR

THE NIGHT TOUR

The circus intermittently illuminated

As if by the light that visits us

When the danger has passed but is still

Close enough to our blood that it

Chills and releases us, chills and releases.

The wagons clank by. We want water,

Its sound, its taste, the feel of it

Upon our faces as it pours from

The sky, tears of the sightless who

Sit in the presence of the most high.

Some of the others had gathered by the waterfall.

As the sun was going down they lit

Lanterns and began to move in the ways

The old dances described, lift to the sky, 

Step. Bow to the earth. Step. Make the sound

That conversation has when most

Important things are being acclaimed.

There will be a way that is safe.  We

Continue our circus well into the night,

Until the children fall asleep one by one,

Until the rain slows, Until it becomes to dark to see.

FINDING THE OLD LANGUAGE

FINDING THE OLD LANGUAGE

In a rage to know all things,

Or as many things as it is possible

To know when one is eleven years old.

The divine walking amongst

Our friends, choosing this one

And that one, taking them away.

Unlacing their memories,

Giving their recognition of others

To the winds, to the birds,

Both flying away in a flurry of noise.

Electrical storms across the brain

At any time; just sitting there,

Getting out of bed, walking from one

Room to another.

All that was familiar

Suddenly not at all

Understandable.

Time without borders.

Anything could happen

At any instant,

Or perhaps not happen at all.

Waking from a summer nap.

The light, enchanting, over everything,

Temperature and sound engaged

In a magnificence of waking.

The world, yes!

Rulers of the mind,

All chemicals and fires

In the neurons and synapses.

More and more information

Beyond explanation.

The half-remarkable question:

"What is it that we are part of,

And what is it that we are?"

*

The delight of the dance,

The endless business of water.

That which is love,

Beneath the stars,

Inside all of sleeping,

Surrounded by its

Insistence on forever

Waking once again in the same

Room. Still here upon the Earth.

Doing things that become familiar,

To us. No longer surprised

By every act, by each event.

Moving through the day,

Learning laughter and

Helping one another to

Understand how something

Works. Finding the old

Language, the color, the

Limited means of expression.

BURNING GREEN WOOD

Antoni Tudisco

This is a poem from by book WHERE THE STARS ARE KEPT.  Rattlesnake Press, Pollack Pines, Ca. 2007.

The book is no longer in print.

BURNING GREEN WOOD

Once in Spring, i saw a heart

Smoldering atop a fire of green

Wood.  “Pruning fire,” the farmer told

Me when I came closer to watch.

“Looks like a heart in there.”, I said

Pointing.  “Reckon so,” he answered.  “Came

Out of the pears.”  He gestured to the 

Orchard.  “Kind of unusual, no?” I offered.

“Found ‘em before,” he said, poking at it

With a long-handled rake.  “After Winter

There’s lots of stuff comes out of pruning.  I’ve found

Boxes of letters.  lots of dreams, well, parts

Of them anyway.  They don’t last long usually.

Even found prayers, once or twice.  Think

People would take better care of them.”

The heart caught fire, flamed briefly then

Quieted down again.  “Out here’s a good

Place to leave things, “he continued,

“Puppies, kittens, a body once,

Nobody knew who he was.

Things that are hard to lose, have to put

Them someplace.  Think that heart’s been

There all Winter.  Looked pretty battered.”

“Kind of sad, isn’t it?” I asked.

“Always is,” he said looking me in the face.

“Better than after the war though.  There were

A lot of them then.  That’s why I use

Green wood, new growth.  Makes lots

Of smoke, yes, but it’s new stuff.

Seems better to do it like this.”  He shifted

His weight and threw more wood

On the flames, covering the heart altogether.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked.

“Walking.  I like long walks.”

“Good thing, walks,” he said.  “Have a nice one.”

“Thank you,” I replied and started away,

The smell of wood smoke in my nostrils,

The tower of it reaching high above

The orchard.  The sky still morning pink.

A sound of songbirds came, first far away,

then closer, insisting that the moment

Indeed be Spring, all else of no matter whatsoever.

BREAKING TEMPO / AND WITH YOUR SPIRIT

This poem appeared earlier this year in Medusa's Kitchen.  It is part fiction, part remembrance.  Baxter is E.R. Baxter III, my best friend back in Niagara Falls, NY.   He is a poet, novelist, and a wonderful essayist with more than a few books in print.  His Niagara Digressions is a lovely collection of essays.

BREAKING TEMPO / AND WITH YOUR SPIRIT

There is a slight rise just at the edge

Of the wood where the trees seemed

To have decided they would go no further

Than this.  A rise pushing up with

Visible boulders and short grass.

When I used to go there it seemed

Very important to get right to the brow

Of the place.  There one was even with 

The tops of the trees and could look down

To the ice-edged creek that named the place,

The Baxter Run the people called it.

Baxter had had a farm not too far

From the rise and the stream was a quick

One, moving over rock, heading for the lake

With a couple of deep holes

Where dark fish dwelt, sun fish,

Perch, crappie and bullheads.  Raccoons,

Foxes and raptor birds liked to come here.

I decided to come here for the same

Reason these creatures did,

To know the place.

A place to put my heart and to know it

In my blood and feel it in my bones.

A place where, no matter who came there

They could never find it as I had.

In the silver of summer, if it were quiet

I could hear the lake water lapping

Just at the edge of sound.

A place where I could image old Baxter

Getting up from his kitchen table, lighting

A cigarette, putting on his coat and boots

And making is way to the barn

Where the few head of cattle he kept

Waited for him. Their lowing in the night

Air just above the waves.

He too would walk by the Run.

He too would see the same water

Curl around the edge of the farm,

Past the cabbage field and into

The hardwoods to the rise.

Some evenings I could hear him talking to the cattle,

His voice deep and resonant, a caring.

Then I was the fox and the raccoon,

Then I was the darkened wing headed

Into the woods to find where the night was safe.

Now I wake from deep sleep

In a bed on the other end of evening 

And I am on that rise above Baxter’s run.

I wish for a moon.  I get one.

If I want to see the water rushing

Just beneath the thin ice, I am able

To do so.  If I wish this place 

To become forever, it does so and I become

The place, the rain, the snow,

The wildflowers of Summer,

The insect orchestra.

The tendrils of each day breaks

And there will never be anything

Greater than this peace.