tryingpoetry

Bigleaf Maple

I set out in the fall for the east Bigleaf maples yellow against the green douglas fir The grey skies faded into the green At the top of the pass

And the trees change in the east Ponderosa pines and quaking aspen Still yellow and green But the skies blue at last

Until you climb to the north Into the tallest mountain's silver country Where golden larch grow Against cuts of green argillite

Gloaming

I don't know what that word means but I know how it feels My ears hear it and it tells The neurons something

I don't know if it's rightly known but it doesn't matter anyways My heart is tied now To the all unknown

the overwhelm and the volume and the vastness of the world tiny next to the vastness of the universe and the long long time of light-years and wondering are we all alone or full of company because if it's a numbers game who would ever know

Kindness is all that matters and like her sister she's leaving as a different tribe and a wild thing the mycelium leaving behind roots in the old uncertain tree tracing lines into the heart Even though she hates to know it might die

Until then I am the sword and the fire who has known not battle, secret but stares straight into it's hell imagining the worst so as to save the sweetest most tender wondering at the test knowing full well it might fail on the waters of the San Juan but I'll be damned if I don't try

Lead or old age, spend it well

Goodbye, just for now

I remember the fire the most that hardens the steel strong but brittle

Then quenching The red hot heat magnetism gone

Later slow warming Inside the heart expanding open

brittleness softens to the color of straw arching back

Clear as a day with a gentle rain swaying a tall oak

Dreaming of Hammers

hickory handles and wrought steel anvils hot coals and sparks and the wind of a tuyere

A slug of steel and a blueprint in the minds eye that smells like swisher sweets and half ton gasoline

To red waxy clay and oil paints prisms of color lead wooden bases for bronze

Unbidden

The birds sing and the sky dims False dusk is coming And a regal old fat ass robin sits on the pigpen fence

The buzz files through my brain The malt is strong with this one And the sinking sun makes me think of times long since

The old man and the sea and me The line and tug and scales and bone And the thinking son takes me back to the past long tense

Where the white bass roamed and rock bass hid under shelves of stone

Post Vise

Rust and pitting and you grind it all down Till you see the shiny metal again wipe it with boiled linseed oil To keep it pretty

It sat, like me outside in that “Heavy Marine Air” next to a cold forge

And I rusted and got pitted The days past me by until she sank me in vinegar and ground me down

I'm not stripped bare yet but I see my metal again lots of work to do until I can bend hot steel again

Fire the forge and make what I want to make

The Room

Eve told me about it filled my mind with space like water and overflowing openness

Strange because it's mine and she didn't live there but she knew openness

Creation floods through me with wind in the firs their needles green Faraway maps openness

In that openness... A high vaulted ceiling books all the way up on all sides Ancient library ladders Two leather bound chairs and ottomans desks broad and made of cherry wheeled chairs, plush and easy for arms Stained glass mural double doors to the garden

And no clock

Barrel Racer

She learned to ride without a saddle on a chestnut mare hands wrapped in mane falling off and getting back up again

A young cowboy at the rodeo found her and she married him

On the day I wore red he went home to take care of those white horses

She's rounding the last barrel mad that her horse is failing but I can see that young cowboy waiting at the end to hold her horse help her down kiss her and take her home

The High Abutment of Mur Than

Melting snow into mud my sleep is weary and my mind is off

I dream of the high Abutment of Mur Than jutting from a cliff Into the darkest clouds and fell rain on cliffs granite

awake mind sees the sun stare down and dry the mud

Sad Songs

With my troubles all in tow I listen to these songs and they eat at me she used to ask why I woke up so quiet mornings drag me low

That hurt sings to me about the world and the things I see for the lives heard and the people unseen

To feel their sting salt my eyes from that strongest sea of the people known or not to me so dial the contrast up on that old TV

When it's black and white boiling the blackest tea inside of white stone pottery scented tendrils of steam

Coat the sweetness in my nose those roses always distracted me and I know again where help is needed most

In that help, sweetness more than honey