in this day and age
dealing with health insurance
worst disease of all
“All complaints about life today will be ignored unless they are submitted in the format of elegant haiku poetry.”
poems
May you
May you lose a lot that matters to you
a few times in your life—
May you make and remake and
remake yourself over and again
and burn yourself right down
to ashen smoking embers
of bone and grit and soul—
So that you may always know
the pain of rock bottom
the freedom of rebirth
the hope of revival
the gift of perspective
the awareness of your strength—
May you lose but live again.
Desiccated
I write of only 3%
of the landscape
around me —
the green trees
colorful flowers
amazingly adaptive
dryland wildlife
and blind myself
to the rest of it —
but it’s time
to take a good look
and acknowledge
my selective seeing —
the 97% is dull
barren, stark, harsh, hot
out my bedroom window
there is a plain brown
block walled fence, my
neighbor’s white-metal
shed roof, off of which
glares the sun so brightly
it’s blinding, not a speck
of green in sight, except
one small weed emerging
from dusty gray rocks —
yes, there is a lizard
on the wall, doing push-ups
in the morning sun
and I watch him
with fascination
awed with nature
I forget the surrounding
urban desert ugliness —
until suddenly I wonder
where will he get
his next water?
surely from someone’s
yard watering system
but where do we get
that precious water
for our thirsty homes?
and how much longer
will we be fortunate
enough to have it?
our city and county
allow so much over-
development, it feels
as if they are slowly
killing us, overcrowding
us, not caring about
our quality of life
nor the lizard’s —
but maybe, just maybe
we Phoenicians are
simply outright foolish
for trying to live here
in our air-conditioned
fortresses while the
city dries up around us
Branching
this winter afternoon
i stare between bare
branches of gray trees
in the distance i see
an unreturnable past
or a dwindling future
i can’t tell which but
the silence is sublime
Leaves for the Dead
I who have loved the sound of leaves
Restlessly writhing into speech
Desire that to my silent grave
Only leaves shall reach.
So I who walked above the ground,
And leaves that danced before the sun
May meet below to form one dust
And in the earth be one.
When the last wind has stripped the boughs
Some autumn, go out anywhere
To any tree, and look beneath
The leaves: I may be there.
—Paul Engle, “Leaves for the Dead,” 1929
Death lights heavy
Hummingbird mama
abandons her nonviable eggs —
but keeps checking back
a few more times, just to be sure.
An arm falls from a sickly saguaro
and breaks open on the ground
like a prickly green eggshell —
after decades of desert still-life
a few seconds of death-motion.
But the night breeze is so beautiful
those breezes are — so beautiful
it’s hard not to get swept away.
Charged
suddenly my life feels
like the air before a storm
silent, searching, charged
an imminent disaster
with destructive beauty
bright sun here and now
dark clouds at my horizon
electrified waiting
a whirlwind of stillness
it’s building, billowing
but to i know not where
and possibly to nothing
no body to forecast
whether or whether not
my future lies ahead
feeling ghosts in the wind
restlessness & anticipation
i dread this storm
but somehow
more than that
i welcome it, ache for it
oh i sorely need to become
sodden, grounded
struggle bedraggled
so i can revive
regrow vibrant —
dead branches torn away
old beliefs ripped from roots
worry whipped to shreds
powerful bolts striking
stronger than anything
i can create myself
blind me — enflame my entire sky
i want to look at the world anew
and that starts
with my own vision
i’m ready
for a new version
my being has become torrential
yet minimal — nearly imperceptible
not yet in a crisis, still
i’m bordering one, circling it
crying out for that flash point
beckoning it, to break —
to shatter my former self
and my current nothingness
into a mended calm
risen from the storm
rain, gales, hail —
i don’t care
just let it come
i need to be reborn
from the wild remains
of my inner tempests —
no, i do not want to die
but only to live again
Storm story
princess lightning reigned
it was a dark and stormy
knight to fall in love
Wizen
but on the bright side
middle age aridity
concentrates essence
Memorial
Grieving makes us stronger
it gives us a spirit of grace
and the grace of spirit —
Our hearts feel weaker
but living past loss is
the ultimate courage —
We honor our loved ones
by living on despite,
and all the more because.
The Sun-Shunner
Trickling down from branch to branch
Like a saffron avalanche,
Filtering through the sylvan gauze
As a frozen topaz thaws,
Lay, in puddles on the moss,
Golden solar, apple-sauce…
—Tom Prideaux (1908–1993), “The Sun-Shunner,” written in the
Inscribed
graves are not limited
to the cemetery —
they lurk in our minds,
and buried in our hearts
lie garlanded stones
marking loved ones lost
Whole body, whole spirit
We thank
on our knees
with folded hands
for full bellies
and fuller hearts