A premonition of night

......................rainy glow of departure and the dim

............pale-blue between

...............that shares the last sheen

of light

with the fringes

of the clouds

now

........she is only a black

..........footnote below the sky

................as it spreads open

..................at dusk burning

.......................................unconcerned

before darkness

To the south on the rolling plateau

....................................................still high
..............................................above the trees
the thin pastures
...........are beginning to green

white patches
......of dolomite
.........look like scars of flour
........but the grass
grows where the ground
....is brown

.................small outcroppings
............................ on the horizon
..............................................bump
............................................ into the heavy clouds
..........................................and sheets
...............................of rain
.....................................droop out of the their bellies

onto the far side of the ridge

.......................Before climbing high enough

.............................to see her............ there is
.....................the limit of trees .....................black

................................shaggy shapes ....................scattered
...over the white dolomite

........................................................they are the oldest
...................................................................................and darkest

............................................growing

............nearly without company

..on the dry
....porous
and alkaline soil ...........they live
......................................................longest where

........................they are most lonely
................................................................and die leaving

...millennial snags........ that bleach
orange-tan ................................ground sharp

..............................and clean by the sand
.


--Avocet, 2007

..........................To the east now

....only the clouds
..are lit ......and the slopes
are black with shadow

.....................the thunderhead’s
.................................rust and flame
...dropping squalls of rain
.........................and sending shafts
..........................of dark lavender out over
.............................the desert into the heart
..............................of the Great Basin ...where
................night always
...falls first



these are
............the walkways
.................................that lead
.............into personal history
.................................that illuminate

....a child’s memory
of permanent west



--Avocet, 2007

Egairia


A dark blue
............wearing green skin
......................that is green
...................................ivory
......threading through sand ..........asleep
entering .......from murk..... the browns of ground
..........unperceived
..through the
..........deformations
..................subterranean
wearing water ........draped with ...skin
.......stippled ............................under
.....fish
.........spotted enveloped
....waving ...........sand changing eyes ...scattered
..........garments .....discarding ..sliding over .......ivory
seasonal adolescence
................................breast
....................green
............................................surrounded
.........surrounded

visiting .......night ......Numa

.........down

...................pool


.....................filtered
.........shouting into streams

................................we are here
......................we are

rushing away



--Transfer, 2004
--Residual Fragments

The Water Temple

Passing through gardens
in the glare of Roman marble
a haze of white light obscures the green
distance

concentric rings
of would-be fountain
are filled with blooming grass
of white-silver plant angels
surrounding
a statue of Egairia
that stands like Phidias’ Athena
in the place of the well

like liquid
a pale platform
of mattress
of shower
growing columns
and canopy
vines of sheets
around her

mounting
arms and legs
of cream
or baked meringue
lifting the roof of hair

the muscles
held
as if by a gyroscope
passing between
electromagnets



--Dream International Quarterly
--Residual Fragments

Afterimage

October
near the limit of trees
on the reflective
polished granite
skinned of soil
walking
blinking
by the resting meadow
a shooting violet
green stemmed twin
living delicately

Tying dreams
while choosing stones
for a garden
making a place to live
distracted
lying

the image
of a desire
vaporized
by the heat of summer
enveloped now
by the disintegrating
campfire

I hunt phosphenes
the sun downing quickly
like the wild azaleas re-closing
chilled
to the dusk
the fingers
of the palmate sun
trailing down my closed eyelid
going delicately
past the wilderness



--Avocet, 2000

The Panther Beds

Walking further
into the county’s wild
beyond the pavement
and the road

he climbed
out of the redwood forest
into the tanoak
and finally

on the edge
of the serpentine
below the ridge
of the chaparral
he saw
the panther’s cypress

The grove was thick
with young trees
and the soil well covered
with scaly leaves

Amid these
were the snags
of burnt elders
(just a few)
left to their rotting

The cones opening
in the heat
of the reproductive fire
that killed the forebears
left a carpet of seedlings
that now enriches the barrens
by the brush
and ledges
where the panthers breed



Avocet, 2000

By the Reeded Shore

of mosquitoes and sun
bitten
burned
he walks
watching
coming quietly by
her voice and her listening
awash in his eyes
breathing the fringes
of her garden

brown in her shadows
and in her roots
the wooded sylphs flick her hair
and its combs tease the air
around his ears

he climbs the hummocks
of Cassiope bells
and kneels at her knees
clutching the thin bristles
brushes
cones
bedding

he is the pine flower
in her small but roomy corner
among the drifting pollens
and her vague lure
he holds his feelings
with myths in his hands
and gives her broken strands
alive and crooked
to lay into her leaves



Avocet, 1999

Granite Water

following the tributary
plunging into the alders
and willow
slabs of bark
shattered logs
printing
the mica sand
and last years leaves—
the floating bracts
of dogwood over
stepping down
the igneous crystalline
jointed boulders
and azalea banks
to the maple elevation
and last cascade

We reached the Stanislaus
the May water
of suspended minerals
and lifeless velocity
sometimes flying
pushing out anything loose
including any thought
of dipping in

We only watched the fear
as it shot by unchallenged
from one churn
to the next
like a falcon in pursuit
of June
.
.
.
Avocet, 1999

Three women

Burgundy
dying-Eyes
laughing-Eyes
curious-Eyes

mirth perhaps
and I was wondering about it

Outside the pressing black forest
and night to be lost in
and the secure feeling
of looking in unseen

Goodbye I’ve got to be
in the clay tomorrow
The night ignores me
I don’t know when I’ll see it again

And in the morning there is clay
When they’ve gone it makes my home
Red blue orange brown it holds together
There is strength in the clay





Toyon, 1982

Chocolate

On a riverboat
as Pahn steps into a room
a man steps out

Pahn means to think nothing of this
but cries instead
and Rakhehla holds him
and she sings to him
his old songs
and though he can’t decide if she understands them
or if knowing them (him)
makes a difference
finally he feels something
even if it isn’t love
and so it is time to join the men

Pahn sits with laughers
friends of hers
They eat chocolate
Pahn eats chocolate
and laughs too

Pahn sees the price—
eight dollars
for one big slab
and there are many

Leaving the steamboat
he walks
and something is wrong
His sister

Ahnjehlia
garden and heather
sits near a gate
upset
Pahn asks why

She won’t answer
but her stomach is sick and coming up
Pahn speculates that she

has eaten too much chocolate

--mojo risin'

--Residual Fragments

The Cirrus Sky

I don’t mean
To belabor
This mountain

But I always
Come to it

It must have been
A day like this
With parents
And children
Standing there
When the thinness
Of the air
Came in
And the unobstructed
Distance
Pulled

Feeling this
And its casual
Well-being
I happened to look
Up
And saw it

Over the parched
Horizon
Of brush and oak
And dry pasture

The wind
Spreading
Clouds
Of ice




--Avocet, 2001

Upper Well

Farther
through the abandonment
of olives and gray
splintered boards
sun weathered
lichened

brush that has apples
mulberries
vetch covered road

through bay thicket
black mud again
gray leaves
beneath light gray trunks

A well
covered with a shed
corrugated steel
dark
Redwood plank wet
with blue-gray mud
under water
mineral hard

It tastes gray
like rocks
like frailty




--Avocet, 2006

Living in Hexandria

As we walked
toward the beach
I heard him speak
of her

as
“One of the most
caustic women”
he’d ever met

Knowing him
and his chauvinism
I looked forward
to meeting her

There was an edge
to her humor
no insinuation
passed without comment

If she was angry
she had reason
living
on this masculine frontier

I wasn’t prone much
to bitterness then
but felt respect
for someone who fell into it
without reservation
and I had to wonder
at our being here
in such company

comfortable
at the wilderness edge

wary
of its inhabitants




--Aura, 2001

Medicine Lake

1)
Laying my head
On air
Inside the netting
Raised
With shock-cording
In a caldera’s cradle

An antlered calm
Walks
On the edge
Of disturbance
To water

A brief shower
Shaking down
Through the red bark
Of California’s fir
Releasing
Temporarily
The unsorted
Stress

2)
Transferring
By volcanic association
Into the meadow
The impression
Of molten hair

A woman
With lava
On her head

3)
Walking
Over the stone-flows
With my son
To a pond
In a timber-lined chamber
Catching frogs
Among dragonfly multitudes




--Avocet, 2004

Tuesday Night


I am floating

resting past the lighted hills

glancing in moments
of tranquility at the moon spread out
spacious across the bay

and I cast my lime-lights
down at my mother her surface
shifting mineral and metal

and we meet
bolt for bolt
glowing behind the curtain of my falling body


I have silver now

to match her flesh of water
and thunder to match her quaking

dissipating in the wind above her

rain taken by the Sierra my
uplift filled by the sinking

air of the ridge



--Avocet, 2006

The U.S. vs. Foster

It is
A testament
To the weakness
Of language

That words
Can be usurped
For politics

And used against you
To define you
Into illegality

Excommunicating
Intact
Entire philosophies

Dispossessing you
Of the expression
For your meanings

Leaving you
Deprived
Of a tongue


--Aura, 2001

Birch

Walking
In the woods
I find
Your thin skin
Rent
And peeling
In sheets

Seeing
Into the layers
Opening
Between limbs
Your pale
Clean
Coral

Tearing
Away the paper
To uncover you

I take a shred
Dusty with neglect

And look
At your lenticular script
The brown freckles
In their field of flesh
Benign
And unaffected

I walk
Around you
Staring


--Flint Hills Review, 2006

Damp Wings

While watering
Red salvia
Petunias
By accident
I wet a moth

A pattern
Of tan
On its outer wings
Sliding out
Showing intimate
Inner rose

It turned its wings
To the wind
And the sun
And began to flutter

Not the flapping
Of flight
But a drying
Tremble

For minutes
As I watched—
The droplets
On its body
Shrank

The dampness
Of its wings
Invisible


--Avocet, 2000

Monument

Out in the canyon lands
of Arizona
rain falls

like tines of a garden rake
around Egairia who is

the standing rocks

Looking in her direction
a shower of small words falls
like drops
from a water wand
in circles
around her

Then the larger words
come from the clouds behind him
splattering
on the dry soil
and soaking in


--Avocet, 1999
--Residual Fragments