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spires

A ghazal! I haven’t written a ghazal since June of 2005. So that makes this—what?—my 127th. Feels nice to get one out again. I remember I got real tired of them by the end of my ghazal project a few years ago, but I never really intended to abandon them altogether.

With this one I veer away from using my penname in the signature couplet (last couplet) to using a reference to one of my penname’s meanings. In this poem it’s “open skies”, since “vast openness to the heavens” is one of the Arabic meanings for ‘Zahhar’.

spires

let’s twine our roots beneath the world together
until we rise against the wind together

let’s turn and reach to gather shades of light
with countless long thin leaves that wave together

let’s make a bed beneath our outstretched limbs
shaded by the dreams we weave together

let’s draw clear waters from the hidden earth
and breathe them out as vapors washed together

let’s share the sounds of creeks and faint cicadas
their rhythmic songs like magic wound together

let’s shelter soft brown trails among the fern
where lovers holding hands may walk together

let’s filter daylight from the open skies
through daydreams spun like amber webs together

Publication History:

Art Arena (web-based) — March 2007

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oak touch

My 22nd terzanelle. There are two particular inspirations behind this poem, but I’ll mention one. Years ago I had an extremely vivid dream involving a large black oak, species q. kelloggii, or California black oak. Without going into detail, in this dream the tree drew me to the shade of its canopy, and once there I found myself surrounded by all sorts of dream-time creatures (the sort of creatures that don’t exist in waking reality) as a raven high in the crown dropped a small something down for me to investigate. There’s more to it. Actually the dream is pretty well laid out in my poem, “markers”.

Well, two weeks later I was driving back to Ukiah from the coastal town of Mendocino over the Comptche-Ukiah road—a radically windy one-lane little thing—and as I rounded a corner just east of Orr Springs, there it was—the massive old oak from my dream. Years have passed, and I’ve struggled to understand what that dream and this oak are all about for me, but I still don’t really know. I would like to know. But I don’t know. I must settle for vague insights, as this is the way of such things.

oak touch

sepia leaves and branches shade
the supple parchment of your years
rooted deep in stardust dreams

wind shimmers through the boughs of time
beneath an ever phasing moon
the supple parchment of your years

bares the mark of ancient grace
that rustles by a canyon’s edge
beneath an ever phasing moon

grasses lap gray plates of bark
spread throughout a billowed crown
that rustles by a canyon’s edge

with each new breeze like subtle gems
glimmers softly in the dark
spread throughout a billowed crown

writhing in elusive light
the serpent beauty of your form
glimmers softly in the dark

etched against the realm of night
sepia leaves and branches shade
the serpent beauty of your form
rooted deep in stardust dreams

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investment

It’s been raining all day. The skies are heavy. I love heavy skies, actually. I love rain. I could use a walk, though, but I don’t always feel like going out for a walk or hike when it means I’m going to get wet. Haven’t been out so much the past few days due to the rain because I’ve just gotten over a monster head cold and I don’t want a relapse. But in a few days as I complete my recovery I’ll be out for my walks even if its raining.

This doesn’t have anything to do with the poem. Just a bit of environmental context, in a sense. I just wrote this while sitting in a Starbucks cafe. I played with a couple of stanzas then went out and played my bansuri flute for awhile beneath the awning. I’ve found that bamboo flutes and rain mix very well. Very satisfying to my spirit. Then I went back in and played with the poem some more. Then back out again with my flute.

As I played a man from Mexico came up and asked me if I was playing a kanakta (assuming I heard and/or spelled that right). I asked him what that was and he told me a South American wooden flute. I told him I was playing a bamboo flute from India called a ‘bansuri’. He was really intrigued by the instrument. His enjoyment of my playing was also satisfying to my spirit.

Anyway, this poem. I met someone recently and we’re getting to know one another. Looks like it will turn out to be an intimate relationship. Never know where these will lead or how they’ll end up. But I guess I’ll give it a go. She is very pretty, and unique. And we all know how pretty and unique affects most men. But it’s a psycho-spiritual investment, the sort with uncertain returns.

investment

perhaps i’ll brush my fingers
  down the backbone
 of your thought

feel the white frame move
  beneath the smooth motion
 of your silken cover

perhaps i’ll reach out
  and sip from the spring
 of your thoughts

part my lips and let
  your essence slide
 to my center

perhaps i’ll stand barefoot
  by the whispering edge
 of your emotion

wet my feet with waves
  and risk the moonlit tides
 washed from mystery

perhaps i’ll stand in awe
  beneath the star fields
 of your reflection

and catch my breath
  when one parts and falls
 from the night

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Spillway

Lake Mendocino, a reservoir lake, is a few miles north of Ukiah. The lake serves multiple purposes, among which are water storage for civic and agricultural uses, hydroelectric power for the City of Ukiah, and water-sport recreation for the region’s inhabitants.

About a two mile’s walk southeast of the dam there is a broad spillway that has been cut right through a tall hillside, effectively turning one peak into two. I have found that if I play my flute at the concrete lip of the spillway, the side furthest from the lake, I can create an orchestra of reverberating echoes. The effect is often stunning and mesmerizing.

This is my 22nd villanelle.

Spillway

Amid the ghostlike skeletons of oaks,
a lone song lifts from a channel brown with grass
and echoes up to join dissevered peaks.

Whispers lap the edge of a mountain lake
nestled in a valley, smooth as glass,
amid the ghostlike skeletons of oaks.

Wind shimmers through the chambers of a reed,
resonates across a manmade vale,
and echoes up to join dissevered peaks.

Frogs concealed in rip-rap greet the dusk;
a pair of small birds chase each other’s tails
amid the ghostlike skeletons of oaks.

A raven drops clear pebbles off its beak,
a sound that ripples lightly through the air
and echoes up to join dissevered peaks.

The lone song dims to silence. In its wake
a gentle quiet settles with the dark
amid the ghostlike skeletons of oaks
and echoes up to join dissevered peaks.