From the far bank

When the sun is going down,

a fringe of bare branches still reach up

between the horizon

and the deep-shadowed earth,

trunks mooring down to the water line,

flaunting face stares into my eyes

if I drop my outstretched hand,

raised, not in salute - but well I might.

The river’s ripples

reflect the persuasive blazing,

waves scattering light shards in all directions,

mostly downstream, the band of dazzle

drifts toward the bridge

and yet still holds in place.

The watery way looks bearable,

not to my feet, but softer to my eyes.

Yet the wet rivulets and the sprightly wavelets of lights,

like tiny boats bobbing, are driven

not by current or oar, but by the west wind.

Outlying coracles wink under the span

of liquid sunlight and head back out into the blue.

Bare branches

This winter I have not been discontent. I have not been impatient with bare branches. I am now eager for spring, leaning with the earth into the sun. But this year I have looked more often with some care through bare branches. I have missed less what I could not see and sometimes have noticed I could see farther along certain sight-lines. Green-fringed horizons cannot come too soon, but gray-fringed skies will be missed. To see farther I shall merely have to go out into the open.  I shall look up.

Tonight, most of the sky was hazy. Sky time - the two stars of the dipper overhead hardly visible pointing down to the pole star- was midnight when I checked. Bare branches around me black against a brighter sky. Often at dusk I have walked through South Park. Easily, the nearer bare branches  passed before the farther ones. My video is jerky, even though I took some care. The passing  seemed so smooth to my walking eyes. Tricks of the mind.

I am ready for green leaves by day and black leaves by night to hide what has not been hidden to my open winter eyes. The sun will still reflect off the white limestone of the courthouse. The fountain will burble again. The shadows will change on the ground. Some reds will seem redder.

The equinox approaches. Good bye bare branches, for this season passes without my effort and little lasting regret. I have not been discontent with this winter. It could, perhaps, have snowed more. It did get biting cold, but not too often for my bundled body. And the sun was low in my eyes, often enough. And shining through bare branches.

And the moon is full every twenty eight days. I have never bothered to count to be sure. And the sun will soon have to climb higher in the morning before I can see it directly. I can live with that.

Still photos March 9, 2015

Trying to remember

The warmth seeped out of my winter coat.

The coffee shop was steps behind me.

The sidewalk was concrete.

This is the dead of winter. I extracted those words from my back pocket,

my mind sifting and sorting.

The park came into view as I lifted my eyes.

Brown leaves lay on the grass. When had they fallen?

Sycamores, their branches bare, scraped at the sky,

finger bones without nails, cars might be coffins.

If the street were a river, the sound would be alive.

But tires on asphalt, synthetic, false, but so expected as to be

unnoticed. I tuned it out.

My head tilted back on my neck,

the sky overhead was clear,

the blue fading in honor of dusk.

But a wave approached across the sky from the south in the slowest of motion,

a line – no, that word won’t do.

An edge, a froth, like the ocean after a long journey,

spending it’s last dime on an atmospheric beach.

Gray foam, thinning blue sometimes shining through,

the color of the setting sun tinting the undersides.

They say it’s colder up there. I should look it up.

Perhaps the wave is receding, how would I know?

I have stood on a beach as salt foam touches my bare feet

and returns. I cannot stand up there.

But it’s not like that. My words are not false, but they do not

tell the truth.

The branches are bare, the cold seeps into my coat.

The sidewalk has turned to brick. The earth should be solid,

but no bricklayer would have laid these red bricks so unevenly. And the red color

that I call the bricks does not call to mind the red wool cap on her yellow head

or the blue, also in her cap - blocks back - does not match the sky.

I am taking nearly the shortest line between two points, I am walking on edge here below,

steadily pacing out the seconds.

And in less time than it takes to find the words, a jet has dived into a cloud bank.

Oh, that is not it. Not it at all.

The jet streaked. The streak that I saw was a tail on fire from the sun,

or rather the streaming line of fossil condensation on a straight edge,

a sun-colored crayon marking the past.

The glint of metal has disappeared into an angled wave of cloud, heading for the sun.

But it would surely bend, arc around, come down somewhere. Everything up must come down.

But the streak of light showed again briefly above the not whispering waves of ice crystals,

and behind, the straight line turned wavering and vanished into thin air.

Who makes up this stuff, anyway?

How can anyone breathe in the dead of winter?

I turned at the corner. The sky was a dusky rose-blue and if I had stood there it would have darkened. The thin bony fingers of a distant wave of a thousand branches on the far side of the far street from where headlamps lighted the way down a straight street advancing up - or taillights last gleaming receding under the clear sky. Everything must come down.

The same and different. Lines in a book, paged through too quickly.

I turned again.  And again.

I unlocked my front door and took off my coat.

I turned on the flame and stared as the steam rose upwards from a pot of boiling water.

The spaghetti was straight so long as I held it in my hand.

I think I must have left my scarf at the coffee shop.

When roads converge

 

I woke up in the middle of the night

with magic meandering in my mind.

I got up to make a few notes on a pad.

It was closer to three, actually,

when I finally turned out the light

and slipped back into bed.

It was still warm, but just barely.

Then before seven I awoke.

The unfinished business was tugging.

I put on my slippers and my hoodie.

To the computer I nearly stumbled,

I rubbed my eyes while it booted

and considered again the magic

that turned the girl next door

into the young woman posting photos

from Morocco.

It wasn’t that much of a poem,

but I sent it across the internet anyway,

in the hopes that she would be reminded

that her life was magical to more than just herself.

Then I turned to matters quite urgent,

the fate of the planet hung spinning in the balance,

I resolved what I could and then returned,

to a little light housekeeping.

My desktop had gotten cluttered –

I moved digital files into digital folders.

I created more digital folders for more digital files.

And then I came on the digital name of a young woman,

a student and a barista that I knew.

I had forgotten what I had put into those bytes of space

and when I opened it up I was surprised,

that I had written something more readable

than some of the nonsense I sometimes write.

So I polished it up.

It had taken a bit of careful thought,

and when I finished, my mind was spilling over.

I got up from my chair

and began pacing the floor,

which makes my wife nervous.

She was preparing to leave for her class.

As I packed her a lunch,

I realized that I could do two things at once,

I could carry her books and walk her to school.

I tossed aside my slippers and slipped on my sneakers,

I snuck my pants on over my long johns

and threw on a scarf.

We stepped out the front door together.

The air was cold, even biting.

The 14^th Street hill as steep as ever.

But in time we were resting on top.

She had to go to her class.

We kissed, her glasses were fogged.

She walked off to the right

and I decided to go left.

I wandered through Fraser to get a drink of water.

Then rather than pushing out the back door to home,

I turned through the front doors instead.

The students were hurrying to class.

I was more interested in what they were doing,

than some of them were interested in themselves,

perhaps. They may never have seen me at all.

When I reached the library I had another decision to make,

one in the billion choices I will have in my time.

Would I walk straight ahead,

or turn towards the street?

And here’s the moment where I tell you I believe

in coincidences – I swear that they happen.

I was half-way to the street,

when what to my decluttering mind should appear

but the girl with the digital name.

I had stamped the envelope for a paper post

minutes before stepping out my front door.

I could have handed to her very hand my note.

She was riding her bike and smiling

into my eyes and she raised

her hand and we slapped mittens as she passed.

I hoped she read her name on my lips,

but our eyes read each others’ quite clearly.

I know you.

But this is not the coincidence that I believe in,

this was but a lucky chance.

The wondrous thing was that me and she –

and so many more than she - met at all.

It was all more than a billion to one against.

And more astronomical still

that me and thee should find something

in the other that we like.

We are passing each other in time so quickly,

that we should happen to care at all for each other

is nothing less than magic.

I can only be the poet I am

and the story you can believe if you wish.

I will borrow the words of another,

it’s surely a coincidence that his name was Frost.

Two sidewalks diverged by the library,

I took the one toward the street,

the young woman’s mitten was Kyra’s,

and her eyes made all of the difference.

Nothing better to do

Nothing better to do

Gulls standing in shallow water

Leaning against the rail of the Kaw River Bridge

How should I spend my time?

Why should I not spend my time

thinking about you?

I could be leaning against the railing

of the Kaw River Bridge,

gulls standing in shallow water.

From this distance

they are bigger than grains of salt,

occasionally one flaps it’s wings

for a second or two,

but does not take off.

It stands in the shallow water

a while longer.

Looking at the sky,

the patterns in the clouds,

the colors can be breathtaking.

But how long can I watch the jet contrails

evaporate into thin blue air

or waves inches high lap against

the sandbar too far away to see

more than a sand-colored line against the water –

the water reflecting the sky?

I think I thought of you in between other

thoughts so I wouldn’t spend time

I don’t know how to keep anyway

unnecessarily.

There were minutes waiting for the light to change.

I ignored the sun setting for the billionth time.

I could have had some free time

waiting for the pasta water to boil,

but instead I used it to put away yesterday’s dishes

from where they had drained dry.

I have managed to pick up spare moments,

in the afternoon and evening

but something else always catches my gaze.

Perhaps tonight when it is dark and quiet,

I’ll find an hour or two just to think of you.

I’ll remember how you looked in my mind

when I was leaning against the rail

of the Kaw River Bridge and how I pointed to

the silly gulls standing in shallow water

in front of the island.

You were at that very moment walking across

a different bridge. Perhaps we were thinking

nearly the same thoughts. How blue is the sky?

Why are we so far apart?

On the bridge

 

On one side, 

it looked to me like ducks taking a bath.

They’d duck their heads under water,

then shake all over with their wings.

I looked away, nearly embarrassed. 

And then on the other side

I saw what looked to be

a giant yellow crane

rolling by on about a dozen

huge rubber tires on each side
of the crane.

I mean, has the whole world gone mad,

Michael? Has the whole world finally

gone mad?

Time Lapse at the Dusty Bookshelf

Out of the corner of her eye, as she stood sorting through countless books at the counter in the Dusty Bookshelf, she saw a heavyset man with ruddy cheeks and a white mustache sitting in Alice’s chair with a book open in his hands. He sat slumped in the blue chair where the old cat - the one who had finally never woken up - had usually slept.

The man was fully bundled on this unusually cold and blustery late March day. His coat was zipped up to his chin. His wool cap sparkled with beads of melted snow flakes.

It couldn’t have been but a half-minute later when she glanced up and over. He hadn’t moved. Not an inch. Yet his coat zipper was half way down.

Distracted again for almost no time at all by a customer, she looked again to see his coat zipper all the way down, his winter coat thrown wide open to reveal a very worn, dark sweater. And yet to all appearances, he hadn’t moved a whisker.

The phone rang and then when she turned back, the man’s hat was resting on one knee, which was propped, as if without thought, over his other leg, angled where she was sure it had always been angled. His hair was mussed but he seemed not to even blink.

She stared out of the window. The large, fat snowflakes seemed to fall in slow motion. And then time froze. She felt as if she couldn’t lift up her hand to brush away even a bit of hair that had fallen across her face. She wanted to turn her head to see if the man in the chair had moved, but her body refused to obey her mind.

And then in the stillness, but for the ticking of the clock behind her, she heard a page turn. She looked towards the chair. The man’s lips had curled upwards ever so slightly. And she realized that she had begun to breathe again.